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Gavin Marshall voted very strongly for tobacco plain packaging

How Gavin Marshall voted compared to someone who believes that the federal government should introduce plain packaging for tobacco products

Division Gavin Marshall Supporters vote Division outcome

10th Nov 2011 – Senate Trade Marks Amendment (Tobacco Plain Packaging) Bill 2011 - Second Reading - Read a second time

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The majority voted in favour of a motion to read the bill for a second time.(Read more about the stages that a bill must pass through here. ) This means that the majority agree with the main idea of the bill.

Background to the bill

The bill was introduced with the Tobacco Plain Packaging Bill 2011 to amend the Trade Marks Act 1995(Read more about trade mark law in Australia here. ) to ensure "that regulations may be made in relation to the plain packaging of tobacco so that businesses are not prevented from registering new trade marks or from protecting trade marks against infringement".(Read more about the bill, including its explanatory memorandum and bills digest, here. ) If these two bills succeed, Australia will be the first country in the world to introduce plain packaging.(Read more about plain packaging here, and more about the government's reasons for introducing the bills here.)

References

 Yes Yes (strong) Passed by a small majority

How "voted very strongly for" is worked out

The MP's votes count towards a weighted average where the most important votes get 50 points, less important votes get 10 points, and less important votes for which the MP was absent get 2 points. In important votes the MP gets awarded the full 50 points for voting the same as the policy, 0 points for voting against the policy, and 25 points for not voting. In less important votes, the MP gets 10 points for voting with the policy, 0 points for voting against, and 1 (out of 2) if absent.

Then, the number gets converted to a simple english language phrase based on the range of values it's within.

No of votes Points Out of
Most important votes (50 points)      
MP voted with policy 2 100 100
MP voted against policy 0 0 0
MP absent 0 0 0
Less important votes (10 points)      
MP voted with policy 0 0 0
MP voted against policy 0 0 0
Less important absentees (2 points)      
MP absent* 0 0 0
Total: 100 100

*Pressure of other work means MPs or Senators are not always available to vote – it does not always indicate they have abstained. Therefore, being absent on a less important vote makes a disproportionatly small difference.

Agreement score = MP's points / total points = 100 / 100 = 100%.

And then