Dean Smith voted consistently against increasing the Youth Allowance rate
How Dean Smith voted compared to someone who agrees that the federal government should increase the Youth Allowance rate to ensure that it covers basic living costs
Most important divisions relevant to this policy
These are the most important divisions related to the policy “for increasing the Youth Allowance rate” which Dean Smith could have attended. They are weighted much more strongly than other divisions when calculating the position of Dean Smith on this policy.
| Division | Dean Smith | Supporters vote |
|---|---|---|
14th Aug 2017, 10:08 AM – Senate Social Security Amendment (Caring for People on Newstart) Bill 2017 - Second Reading - Agree with the bill's main idea |
No | Yes |
Other divisions relevant to this policy
These are less important divisions which are related to the policy “for increasing the Youth Allowance rate” which Dean Smith could have attended.
How "voted consistently against" is worked out
They Vote For You gives each vote a score based on whether the MP voted in agreement with the policy or not. These scores are then averaged with a weighting across all votes that the MP could have voted on relevant to the policy. The overall average score is then converted to a simple english language phrase based on the range of values it's within.
When an MP votes in agreement with a policy the vote is scored as 100%. When they vote against the policy it is scored as 0% and when they are absent it is scored half way between the two at 50%. The half way point effectively says "we don't know whether they are for or against this policy".
The overall agreement score for the policy is worked out by a weighted average of the scores for each vote. The weighting has been chosen so that the most important votes have a weighting 5 times that of the less important votes. Also, absent votes on less important votes are weighted 5 times less again to not penalise MPs for not attending the less important votes. Pressure of other work means MPs or Senators are not always available to vote – it does not always mean they've abstained.
| Type of vote | Agreement score (s) | Weight (w) | No of votes (n) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Most important votes | MP voted with policy | 100% | 25 | 0 |
| MP voted against policy | 0% | 25 | 1 | |
| MP absent | 50% | 25 | 0 | |
| Less important votes | MP voted with policy | 100% | 5 | 0 |
| MP voted against policy | 0% | 5 | 12 | |
| MP absent | 50% | 1 | 1 | |
The final agreement score is a weighted average (weighted arithmetic mean) of the scores of the individual votes.
Average agreement score = sum(n×w×s) / sum(n×w) = 0.5 / 86 = 1%.
And then this average agreement score
- between 95% and 100% becomes "voted consistently for"
- between 85% and 95% becomes "voted almost always for"
- between 60% and 85% becomes "voted generally for"
- between 40% and 60% becomes "voted a mixture of for and against"
- between 15% and 40% becomes "voted generally against"
- between 5% and 15% becomes "voted almost always against"
- between 0% and 5% becomes "voted consistently against"