Well, good morning, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Lindsay Maxsted, and I'm the Chairman of Transurban Group. Welcome to the 2022 Annual General Meetings. This morning, we are holding three meetings concurrently. These are the annual general meetings for Transurban Holdings Limited, Transurban International Limited, and Transurban Holding Trust. We have a quorum, so I declare the meetings open. As I am chairing today's meetings in Melbourne, on behalf of Transurban, I would like to acknowledge the traditional owners, the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nation. We pay our respects to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and to elders past, present, and emerging.
Our assets are located on many different traditional lands, and the impressive artwork that you've just seen in that video is one of the ways in which we demonstrate respect to the traditional owners and their connection to land and our local communities. The board and I are pleased to be meeting with security holders in person today. The first time, of course, this has been possible since 2019. We're delighted to have the opportunity to meet in this forum once again. However, we also recognize that not everyone is able to attend in person, and for this reason, the meetings are being run in a hybrid format. For those who have joined online, we're pleased that you've joined us also today.
As well as providing our security holders with an update on our operations, this AGM also provides an opportunity for board members to hear directly from you, security holders, whether here in the room today or whether attending virtually. For those joining us virtually, we have worked very diligently to ensure the broadcast runs smoothly, but should you experience any technical difficulties, a recording of the meetings will be available on our website later today. As outlined in our notice of meetings, security holders attending in person and virtually will have the opportunity to vote and ask questions of the board in real time. For those attending virtually, I encourage you to submit your written questions as early as possible.
Also, to provide everyone with an opportunity to vote, and in case anyone cannot stay for the duration of the meetings, I will now formally open the poll on all resolutions. The notice of meetings was made available to all of you, and with your consent, I shall take that document as read. I'd now like to introduce the directors and our company secretary. On my immediate right is Chief Executive Officer Scott Charlton, and then independent non-executive directors Marina Go, Terry Bowen, Craig Drummond, Patricia Cross, and Mark Birrell. On my left, Company Secretary Fiona Last, Peter Scott, Rob Whitfield, Jane Wilson, and Tim Reed. Since our last AGM, the board has continued its succession and renewal activities, including by appointing Marina Go, as a non-executive director in December of last year. I welcome Marina to this, her first annual general meeting for Transurban.
Marina's diverse experience and expertise are contributing to a board that collectively possesses the key skills, experience, and attributes, as you would expect, required to effectively govern Transurban for the future. Marina is standing for election today, and she will address the meeting later. In addition, Peter Scott is standing for re-election today. Peter is a highly valuable contributor to our board, and you'll also hear from him later in the session. As previously announced, I'm retiring from the board at the conclusion of today's meetings, and the board has elected Craig Drummond as the new chair of Transurban, effective from the conclusion of this AGM. Now, I've worked alongside Craig, obviously, since he was appointed to the board in July of 2021.
He was most recently the CEO at Medibank, and he brings to Transurban more than 30 years' experience in financial and regulated industries, service industries. Craig has extensive experience across all facets of company management, including equity and debt capital markets, risk management, and business strategy, as well as customer experience. I'm so pleased the board has elected someone of Craig's caliber, and I'm confident the business is well-placed to succeed into its next chapter, led by Craig as chairman. Transurban is an exceptional business. It's been a privilege to serve 14 years as a director and 12 years as chair in what has been a period of great evolution for the organization.
In this time, Transurban has grown from a collection of seven separately managed roads in Australia into a leading global infrastructure business with 21 assets, 3 countries, 9.7 million customers. We've entered new markets with acquisitions in both Queensland and in Canada. In the U.S., we opened our first Express Lanes on the Capital Beltway ring road around Washington, D.C., around a decade ago. We've since created a network of more than 85 km of Express Lanes, servicing one of the most important and prosperous economies in that country with further expansions underway. In Sydney, we've extended our portfolio to include two of the city's most significant pieces of infrastructure, WestConnex and NorthConnex.
These assets have transformed the way that people and freight navigate their way around that city and will create value for customers, the community, as well as for you, our investors, for many years to come. In building our portfolio, we have formed partnerships with some of the world's and Australia's leading superannuation funds and infrastructure investors who appreciate the value that we create in our assets and have chosen to invest alongside us. These partnerships have allowed us to pursue opportunities both here in Australia and in North America. We've also had tremendous support from you, our security holders, particularly in the equity raisings that have underpinned our major transactions.
Most recently, the AUD 4.2 billion that we raised in October last year to acquire the remaining 49% of WestConnex from the New South Wales government, which of course took our total ownership interest to 50% and that of the Sydney Transport Partners consortium to 100%. It has been an important consideration for the board to offer the fairest structure of entitlement offers to our investors, and we are pleased to once again demonstrate our preference for entitlement offers to security holders, as we did in the funding of our first stake in WestConnex, as well as what we did for the West Gate Tunnel project. On behalf of the board, I once again thank you for your support.
Over the past decade, we've maintained an average concession life on our assets of more than 28 years through disciplined investment in projects and acquisitions such as these I've just mentioned that will generate distributions to our security holders over the long term. The transformation of Transurban has stretched far beyond the growth of our portfolio. What was, at its core, an engineering business, is now a business that leads the way in diverse areas ranging from customer and technology platforms to traffic forecasting, community engagement, and partnerships. Transurban's focus on sustainability and reducing our impacts on the environment, from project design to daily operations, has seen the business consistently rated among the top performers in the infrastructure sector in global indices, such as the Dow Jones Sustainability Index and the Global Real Estate Sustainability Benchmark.
All these outcomes are the result of the dedicated efforts of the Transurban team and its relentless focus on delivering on our strategy and creating long-term value for all our stakeholders. This focus has seen Transurban evolve into the robust and future-facing organization that it is today. As I say, it's been truly rewarding being part of that journey. Now, I'd like to turn to our financial results for the year ended 3 June 2022. In H1 of FY 2022, traffic continued to be impacted by restrictions on movement related to the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly in our major markets in Sydney and here in Melbourne. While traffic volumes overall were broadly flat at 2 million trips per day compared to the prior year, pleasingly, traffic continued to grow as the year progressed, and in Q4 actually exceeded pre-pandemic levels.
Now around 2.4 million vehicles use our roads on an average daily. Our September quarter results, which we released today, showed that continuing trend, with traffic volumes improving to record levels, and Scott will elaborate on this in his presentation. Our proportional toll revenue increased by 5.7% year-on-year in the FY22 year to some AUD 2.626 billion, mainly as a result of increased travel in the later part of the year, as well as some new asset capacity in New South Wales. Proportional earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortization, EBITDA, excluding significant items, increased some 3.5% to AUD 1.9 billion compared to the prior corresponding period.
Free cash increased by 19.8%, and as a result, we paid a full year distribution of AUD 0.41 per security, which was a 12.3% increase on the previous year. That meant that more than AUD 1.25 billion was distributed to security holders in FY 2022. After two years of uncertain economic conditions driven by the pandemic, the board was pleased to be able to provide distribution guidance for the current year, FY 2023, at the time of announcing our FY 2022 results. We expect to pay a distribution of AUD 0.53 per security this year, which represents a 30% increase on the FY 2022 distribution. This guidance reflects the improved traffic performance and the benefit of toll price escalations, which are linked to the Consumer Price Index.
As previously disclosed, our guidance is subject of course to things like traffic performance, macroeconomic factors, our distribution policy, as well as timing of distributions from subsidiaries. In the current economic climate of both rising inflation and interest rates, Transurban remains very well-positioned to grow our revenue and our distributions. The structure of our concession arrangements means that we have significant built-in inflation protection, with some 68% of our revenue is actually linked to CPI escalations. On the other side, around 96% of our existing debt book is fully hedged, which reduces our exposure to current market interest rate volatility. In FY 2022, we refinanced more than AUD 3.4 billion of debt, which actually lowered the weighted average cost of debt. The balance sheet is in a strong position and can support both near and longer term growth opportunities.
Combined with a positive trend in traffic, performance, and project delivery, we think Transurban has a very meaningful base for generating cash flow. Transurban's capital strategy, of course, seeks to balance long-term value creation while maintaining distribution growth. Our assets are first-class, and along with our pipeline of developments and opportunities, the group is confident in our ability to continue to deliver value for all of our investors and our other stakeholders. During the 2022 financial year, the group also achieved significant development milestones. Once again, these accomplishments were delivered against the backdrop of the pandemic and its uncertainties, particularly during that H1 of the financial year. To successfully progress such large-scale projects is testimony to Transurban's resilience and capacity to adapt to swiftly changing conditions, and these qualities remain hallmarks of how the group goes about its business.
We're now only months away from opening the next stage, the next critical stage of WestConnex in Sydney, the M4-M8 link. In the United States, we've progressed projects that will further enhance and extend our Express Lanes network. We also, as most of you know, reached agreement on revised delivery terms for the West Gate Tunnel project with the Victorian Government and the project's design and construction subcontractor. Including a new completion date of late in 2025. After the disappointing delays and additional costs, this project is now well on track. It's a critical transportation project for Melbourne, as many of you know, and remains a financially attractive investment for Transurban that will create value for security holders for many years to come.
Major infrastructure projects such as these are the most obvious way that we deliver on our business purpose, and that is to strengthen communities through transport. However, we also work towards achieving our purpose through activities that span the breadth of our business. During FY 2022, we continued to make significant progress on a number of environmental, social, and governance initiatives, ESG initiatives, that reinforce our sustainable business practices as well as our commitment to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. We are now sourcing two-thirds of our electricity for all Australian operations from renewable sources, which has led to a 46% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions compared to the previous year. We continue to pursue opportunities to improve energy efficiencies across all of our assets and are on track to achieve our 10% energy efficiency target by the end of FY 2023.
Recently, our 25-year-old M2 motorway in Sydney was awarded an operations rating of excellent from the Infrastructure Sustainability Council, which evaluates the economic, social, and environmental outcomes of infrastructure. This is our first operating asset to receive a sustainability rating and again, is testimony to the way in which we continuously improve our assets to achieve better outcomes through initiatives such as energy efficiency measures. Over the life of the M2, we expect to almost halve our greenhouse gas emissions compared to the base case. Our West Gate Tunnel project also recently received the highest possible recognition of leading for its design from the Infrastructure Sustainability Council and is the largest project to complete an IS design rating. While these are excellent outcomes, we also recognize that vehicle emissions are a significant contributor to greenhouse gas emissions.
By choosing our roads over alternative routes, drivers save an average of 27% in greenhouse gas emissions. However, we are focused on educating our customers to drive more economically to further reduce fuel consumption and emissions. In February this year, we released a report that outlined the findings of a trial using an in-house, in-vehicle device to monitor driving behavior. Trial participants traveled 700,000 kilometers and achieved a 5.5% reduction in fuel and greenhouse gas emissions. This year, the need for action to address climate change has been put sharply into focus with widespread flooding in Queensland, New South Wales and of course, sadly, more recently in Victoria.
Our roads are designed and built to keep cities moving, and their ability to support disaster responses and other emergencies will become increasingly important in the future, as will their role in supporting safe access and movement of affected communities. We continue to address the recommendations of the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures to better understand the risks and financial implications that climate change may present for our operations and our assets. Finally, I'd now like to comment on our remuneration framework. The board was concerned last year to receive a 25.74% vote against the remuneration report at our 2021 annual general meetings. During the past 12 months, the board has focused on deepening its understanding of security holder concerns. On behalf of the board, I thank those of you who took the time to speak with us.
Listening to our stakeholders, our consultation found a diversity of views, of course, regarding executive remuneration. The board also understands that it needs to ensure appropriate performance-based remuneration, including sufficient leverage to motivate, incentivize, and retain the executive talent required to deliver our business strategy. As a result, further refinements were made to our remuneration approach in addition to those already approved as part of the ongoing review of Transurban's remuneration practices. These changes, of course, are outlined in detail in our FY22 corporate report and include changes to both short- and long-term incentive plans for the executive team. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes my presentation. Before we move on to a short video and to Scott's comments, I again would like to take this final opportunity to thank you, our security holders, for your support.
I know the board is looking forward to achieving many more milestones under Craig's guidance as chair. To the wider Transurban team that has demonstrated the highest level of professionalism, particularly during the past few years, I sincerely thank you for all your efforts and your commitment. Before I hand over to Scott, I'd like to play this short video, which features some of our project highlights over the past year. Thank you.
Thank you, Lindsay, and welcome everyone, and it's good to see so many people in person. I would like to start by acknowledging Lindsay for his exceptional contribution to Transurban through this transformative time in the company's history. I know the executive committee, which I think is all here in the front row, so hopefully you had a chance to meet some of them after the break. The executive committee and I have valued his leadership and guidance over these many years. On behalf of the board and the whole team at Transurban, Lindsay, we wish you the very best for your future endeavors. As you've seen from this video that we just played, we are making some significant progress on our major pipeline of major projects.
These projects will create productivity and quality of life benefits for our cities through safer, faster, and more reliable travel for decades to come. To put some of that in perspective, the link between the M4 and the M8 tunnels, which you saw some of those pictures in Sydney, which will open early next year, will save motorists traveling from Parramatta to the new Sydney Airport around 40 minutes in travel time, and they will bypass up to 52 sets of traffic lights. Here in Melbourne, the West Gate Tunnel project will save motorists about 20 minutes in travel time between the city and those western suburbs. We're very excited about the progress we've actually made on the project with the tunnel boring machines now more than halfway through digging the twin tunnels, and we are on track to open in 2025.
As well as seeing these great projects, it's also fantastic that we're actually seeing that our cities are moving again. A lot of you would have experienced some of that traffic over the last few months. As Lindsay mentioned, our final quarter results for FY 2022 showed traffic volumes reaching an all-time high. This was supported by the new assets in Sydney, including NorthConnex, the M8, and the M5 East. Customers are seeing some real value in the significant savings in travel that these roads are offering. What our September quarter results have showed, which we released today, is that we've surpassed those results, and they now represent our strongest quarterly traffic numbers yet. Sydney traffic continues to grow, and it was up over 18% above pre-pandemic levels.
That's despite what we've had is the 4 times average monthly rainfall in July, which significantly impacted people's movements. Brisbane traffic is up over 7.6% on pre-COVID levels, and weekend traffic is proving to be particularly strong, up by almost 10% right across the network. This was most evident on the Logan Motorway, which had over a 20% increase in weekend traffic, and that's due to the increasing tourism down to the Gold Coast, but also the result of more capacity following our major enhancement project that we did a couple of years ago. While traffic in Melbourne is still recovering, we expect it to grow over time, particularly as more employees are now returning to their workplaces with the relaxation of the mask rules and the lifting of the government's recommendations to continue to work from home.
In the U.S., traffic levels on the 95 Express Lanes continue to rebound as government employees are returning to their workplaces. Traffic on the 95 has increased by more than 13% on pre-pandemic levels, and this has also been supported by strong weekend and interstate travel on that corridor. What these trends are reinforcing is the research findings of our latest Urban Mobility Trends Report that show people use our roads for a variety of reasons, including traveling to social events and holidays, as well as commuting. The research found that of the 16% of respondents who use our roads to commute to work, on average, people are traveling to the workplace about three and a half days a week, and this includes our inner-city workers.
However, many of these have changed their preferred mode of travel, with almost a quarter of the respondents in the survey of over 5,000 people said that they've changed their commute to work from switching from public transport to private vehicles. People expect their travel choice to remain consistent at least over the next year. Now, while people use our roads for many different reasons, most use them infrequently, actually, which is reflected in the spending patterns that we see. The average weekly spend for our Australian customers is AUD 6.70, and 82% of our customers spend less than AUD 10 per week on tolls. Our research also showed that most people do not or only very occasionally consider the price of fuel when they take into account either short trips or commuting.
This is a trend that we have observed over the past decade, with traffic levels remaining resilient to fluctuations in fuel prices. In Australia, our research also showed that the top factor of choosing a toll road is reliability of travel times. Pleasingly, travel time savings on most of our roads, again, are back to pre-pandemic levels. In this last financial year, customers saved around 323,000 hours each workday compared to using an alternate route. Efficient travel is the key value driver for our freight customers, and we continue to see heavy vehicle traffic numbers grow as they rely on our roads for the most direct route to service hubs and ports and other distribution centers.
In Melbourne, where the container movements at the port are now 23% higher than pre-pandemic levels, we saw record volumes of heavy vehicle traffic in the September quarter. The increase in freight movements was consistent across all our Australian markets, with average daily large vehicle traffic up more than 9% compared to pre-pandemic levels. This is partly being delivered by online shopping and other demands for on-time deliveries and logistics. Further research findings in our latest Urban Mobility Trends Report are available on our new Insights hub on the Transurban website, and I encourage you to visit that if you have some time. This hub covers a broad range of data-driven insights, which we publicly share because we want to contribute to transport planning and improving our city's transportation network, providing that data and that research.
We've seen the traffic grow, but in addition to that traffic growth, I would like to reinforce Lindsay's comments that we are very well positioned in the current macroeconomic environment of higher inflation and higher interest rates. This is due to our long-term prudent balance sheet management and our embedded inflation-linked toll escalations. Now we're seeing some of the increases in tolls and already as a result of inflation, which was announced earlier in this calendar year. However, the embedded adjustments in our concessions occur at different times across our assets, and more recent inflation adjustments, which have been larger, will come through later this financial year and into FY 2024, as you can see on some of these charts, on the screen. These escalations will have a long-term effect and rebase revenue for future growth.
As Lindsay said, Transurban has come a long way in the past decade and is almost unrecognizable. We have always had a very unique business. As a toll road developer, owner, and operator with our own customer base, our own inbuilt tolling systems, our business spans every single aspect of our sector. We have a direct workforce of over 3,600 people, and many of them are global leading experts in their field. We have another 5,000+ subcontractors working on some of the most largest and most complex infrastructure projects, not only in Australia, but throughout the world. From our traffic forecasters and data scientists to our customer experience and community consultation specialists, we do have an exceptional team at Transurban.
As custodians of assets with concessions of up to 65 years remaining, we take a very long-term view on how to grow value for our investors and create lasting benefits for all of our stakeholders. Now for our customers, that means consistently exploring ways to improve their experience both on and off the road. Our Australian roads have been independently rated as being up to twice as safe as like roads, and this is a result of data insights and roadside technology capabilities, including some of the world-leading state-of-the-art control rooms, CCTV, road sensors, and a fantastic incident response team. Over the past two years, we have reduced the most common types of crashes on our road, that being rear-end collisions, by 10%.
A small example of how we've used data to improve safety outcomes are the recent signage and line marking improvements near the final exit before the Domain tunnel entrance here in Melbourne. We source data directly and anonymously from connected vehicles' GPS systems, and we verified a concerning trend of sudden braking and swerving near that exit. Now by giving drivers clearer and more advanced warning of the exit, rear-end crashes have dropped by 75% over nine months in that position. Now off roads, our focus is on providing a seamless experience for our almost 10 million customers, the vast majority of whom choose to interact with us via digital tools such as our apps. We also continually upgrade our back-office customer tolling platform to improve and simplify the customer experience and reinforce the reputation as a leader in the transport technology.
Again, a small example of this is we implemented live incident alerts this year within the Linkt app to notify customers about any traffic delays and give them confidence that choosing our roads means a quicker, safer, and more reliable journey. We've also encouraged our Linkt customers to take advantage of fuel discounts available through our customer rewards program. Our fuel discount program has saved customers more than AUD 3 million since we first launched it. Next month, we'll have another competition with a prize pool of more than 3 years' worth of fuel for our customers to help them as well. At the same time, for those customers who are facing hardship, we continue to offer support through our first-time forgiveness program in the U.S. and our Linkt Assist program in Australia.
Now, our sort of unique experience and conglomeration of capabilities allows us to respond to the challenges and the opportunities that are being posed by our growing cities in a rapidly changing transport sector. In turn, we believe this benefits the communities and our government partners. The latest government population forecast estimates Sydney to grow by around 22% by 2041, with higher projections for the outer areas such as Southwest Sydney, which is expected to increase by over 40%. Melbourne is also still expected to grow substantially, with pre-pandemic forecasts predicting it will eventually overtake Sydney's population. Demographics such as these, this is why WestConnex and West Gate Tunnel projects are so critical to keep these cities moving efficiently and why we're so pleased with both those investments.
Now, another project that addresses Western Sydney's rapid population growth is the widening of our M7 Motorway, which Lindsay Maxsted mentioned. It will connect to the future M12 Motorway, which will lead eventually to Western Sydney's international airport, which is now due to open in 2026. Now, actually the need for this project was identified by our in-house traffic modeling team some years ago. You can see from the charts on the screen that the areas of congestion indicated in the yellow and red have grown significantly over the past 5 years. In working with the government, we are now in the final stages of their unsolicited proposal process, and subject to final approval, we expect this project to start in early 2023 and will take around 3 years to complete.
Southeast Queensland is also becoming one of the fastest-growing areas in Australia, with the population forecast to increase by more than 40% by 2041 as well. Increasing the capacity of transport networks will be essential to keeping that region moving efficiently, and we look forward to working with the government on some potential solutions and in particular supporting the 2032 Olympic Games preparation. In North America, the Fredericksburg Extension project, which again extends our 95 Express Lanes by 16 km, is anticipated to open next year. Once complete, it will create the longest reversible express lane system in North America, spanning approximately 80 km from Washington, D.C. down to Fredericksburg, Virginia. In March this year, we are very excited to start construction on the extension of the 495 Express Lanes, which takes us right to the border of Maryland.
It's been a decade since we opened the 495 Express Lanes, and I was here, and that was a very exciting time to increase the capacity of the U.S.'s most congested corridors and was quite a unique process and quite a unique experience with the Express Lanes. Since then, we have served more than 9 million customers across that 85-kilometer network. By 2025, when the latest extension projects are complete, we estimate that the total economic benefits of these Express Lanes to the state of Virginia will exceed $8 billion, and we'll have created more than 53,000 jobs. Finally, in the U.S., the last steps of the environmental review process for phase one south of Maryland Express Lanes project was successfully reached. We're proposing this project as part of our Accelerate Maryland Partners.
While the project still has a long way to go, work is underway on early development and design. The project proposes to add high-occupancy toll lanes alongside our general-purpose lanes and create an option for faster and more reliable travel in a region that suffers some significant congestion. We have selected a team led by a U.S. construction company, Tutor Perini Corporation, as design and construction contractors for phase I south. We're now working with that team to derive value and efficiencies in the project's design, pricing, and delivery through the early development in order for us to submit a committed section proposal and execute a design and construction contract.
We're very busy and there's lots of interesting things going on, but beyond these immediate projects, we have a range of opportunities from enhancements of our existing assets and networks to acquisitions and large-scale greenfield projects that will span over a decade. Both Australia and North America still have large backlogs of infrastructure projects that will need to be delivered to retain livability standards and productivity. We believe there's further opportunity for government to leverage private sector capital and expertise to ensure that this infrastructure development can keep up with demand, particularly at a time when government budgets have been stretched as they have supported the community through this pandemic.
On this point, research in June by the industry peak body Infrastructure Partnerships Australia found that almost AUD 50 billion worth of projects could be built using private sector capital in New South Wales and over AUD 83 billion across Australia. We also found strong support for governments using a mix of private and public investment to deliver critical infrastructure in our, again, mobility trends research. Almost 80% of respondents favored approach, an approach which combined government and the private sector for investment on delivering infrastructure. Now, despite this major backlog of infrastructure projects, record levels of development are underway in Australia. This is expected to peak in 2024, and this has led to a critical shortage of skills in the infrastructure sector as it has in almost every sector.
Recently, I got to participate in the federal government's Job and Skills Summit, which was an excellent opportunity to try to address this issue and discuss ways we can attract the skills we need to deliver Australia's infrastructure pipeline. As a result of the summit, the federal government announced an increase in Australia's permanent migration program, and this is a move we strongly endorse to address the pressing workforce demands. However, we obviously acknowledge there's a lot more needs to be done to upskill our Australian workers to support the economy for the long term. We're working with our construction partners to provide apprenticeships and skills training to thousands of workers on projects such as WestConnex and the West Gate Tunnel project.
We have a purpose-built WestConnex training academy, which has delivered training to more than 1,500 workers, apprentices, and trainees, and something that we're very proud of. We also advocate for greater participation of women in the infrastructure sector. While the national average for female construction participation is an abysmal 12%, ours is 21% on the WestConnex M4-M5 Link Tunnel project. While almost double, there's still a lot of work to do. We're very pleased that a female project director leads our largest project under construction, the West Gate Tunnel project, and in Sydney, 26% of the senior roles on the M4-M5 Link project are filled by women. However, our long-term commitment to gender equity is evident right across the business, including our executive team, which has a 50/50 gender balance.
This year, we are pleased to have been recognized again with the Workplace Gender Equality Agency Employer of Choice citation, which makes it the ninth year in a row that we've received that citation. We also ranked second in Australia and eighth globally in a survey on gender equity in the workplace, which assessed more than 4,000 companies on a gender criteria. Our gender pay gap is less than 1%, and we have maintained that gap of less than 1% now for over five years. Earlier, I spoke about the Urban Mobility Trends Report as one of the ways we monitor new and emerging technologies that impact our business as well.
We work with governments and industry to explore developing areas of policy, and you see us talk a lot in the press and the media, such as things on road funding, connected autonomous vehicles and all kinds of new technologies. I'm very excited because next month we'll actually be running trials of a fully automated truck on a dedicated motorway lane here on CityLink, and this trial will be the first of its kind in Australia. We've imported this truck from a leading technology company and will be trialed on the road and tunnels at night, obviously, when it's quietest. The trial will help us understand the ways roads and on-road technology can be future-proofed to help keep freight moving in smart, safe, and efficient ways. This will ultimately support the growth of our city's economy and the population.
This trial will build on our experience of running trials of connected and autonomous, vehicles, private vehicles that we ran in all of our Australian cities over the last few years. I really look forward to sharing much more on this trial in the future, and look out for this in our announcements in the media. To conclude, I would like to once again to thank Lindsay, as well as the whole board for their continued support and guidance over this last year. I would also like to take the opportunity to congratulate Craig on his, appointment to Chair of the board. The executive team and I are looking forward to working with Craig, who obviously is a former CEO and has an extensive background in the finance sector and large customer-focused organizations.
Thank you to the entire Transurban team for your outstanding contributions this year, and some of you in the room. Thank you very much, and we've achieved so many milestones in very difficult circumstances. Finally, thank you again, as Lindsay said, to all our security holders for your continued support over so many years, and I look forward to speaking with some of you after this meeting. Thank you, Lindsay.
Thanks, Scott. Transcripts of both my address and that of the CEO are available on the Transurban website and on the ASX company announcements platform. Before we move to the formal business of the meeting, I will begin by outlining the procedures for today's meetings. These are security holder meetings. As in past years, only security holders, their attorneys, proxies, and corporate representatives are permitted to vote or to ask questions. With the hybrid meeting format this year, there are three ways questions may be asked. For those here attending in person, you may ask a question if you hold a blue or a red card. Please make your way to a fixed microphone point and provide your name to the microphone attendant. If you're unable to make your way to the microphone, please raise your hand and we'll get that roving microphone to you.
If your question relates to a particular item of business, please wait until we come to that item of business. For those attending online, you may either submit written questions through the platform, or you may ask your question verbally by using the audio questions facility. If you wish to ask a written question, click on the Q&A icon on your screen and select the item of business your question relates to. Type your question in the text box and send, and then click on with the send button. Written questions can be submitted any time. However, I will not address them until the relevant item of business is before the meeting. Written questions may be moderated to avoid repetition, and if questions are particularly lengthy, we may need to summarize them in the interest of time.
If you have a written question already prepared, please submit it now on the platform, so that I can answer as many questions as possible when I come to that relevant agenda item. If you're attending online and wish to ask a question verbally, you will need to follow the instructions below the broadcast window. We recommend that you wait until the commencement of the relevant item of business before connecting to the audio questions line in order to minimize the time queuing to ask your question. Questions which may be moderated will come through to me as Chair of the meeting, and I will either answer them myself or pass it to the most appropriate person to answer it.
If a security holder has a question that relates to the virtual meeting technology, please contact the helpline detailed in our AGM online participation guide, which of course is published on our website. To enable all security holders a reasonable opportunity to ask questions, you are requested to ask one question at a time. Please keep your questions short and to the point, so as many people as possible have the chance to ask a question, as there may not be sufficient time available to address all of the questions raised otherwise. Please ensure your question is relevant to security holders as a whole. If you have any questions on the presentation so far or on Transurban in general, please either submit them or connect to the audio questions line now. We encourage security holders to submit questions in advance of the meetings.
I'll now address some relevant questions. Fiona, would you like to read out the first question?
Chairman, we have a question from Mr. Peter Parsons. There are 11 board members, three of whom are women. Women are 52% of the population. Why are directors unable to find six capable women to serve on the board?
Thank you, Mr. Parsons, for the question. When we think about board renewal, and we've obviously been through a lot over the last two years at Transurban, then we think about a lot of things. What are the skills that we need? What are the skills that we might be replacing in terms of directors that are leaving? What's the experience of the relevant people we might be considering for the board role? Of course, diversity, including gender diversity. All of this is part of the evolution, I suspect. We, once I retire at the conclusion of this AGM, we'll be back to the target we have of 30% women on the board, so 3 out of 10. We are working towards the 40/40/20 mantra, which is right across the organization.
Indeed, if you think about the directors in the last two years, there's been five of them, and two of those, Patricia and Marina, of course, are women. That's at the sort of 40% target. It does take time, but we're very conscious of every aspect of skills, experience, and diversity when we choose our new directors.
Chairman, we have received the following further questions from Mr. Peter Parsons relating to political donations. What benefit did owners receive from the AUD 357,620 in political donations, and why is this an appropriate use of owners' funds? What is the amount, and to whom were political donations made outside Australia? And will the board start publishing political donations in the annual report?
Political donations. A lot of misinformation around political donations, not from Mr. Parsons, he's just quoting something he's read, but this company doesn't make political donations. Transurban does not make political donations. What we do, and this is disclosed both in our corporate report and on the website, is like most companies in this country, we do subscribe to the public policy working groups, if I can call them that, of both the conservative side of politics and labor. So there are monies paid to those organizations, but purely to get in the forums which discuss policy which relates to our sector. It relates to transport and to infrastructure generally. So the amount of money spent is about AUD 70,000 in relation to Australia, in this fiscal year, FY 2022, about AUD 70,000.
In the U.S., a little bit higher, U.S. $130,000. That's all in our corporate report and on our website. As I say, we don't make political donations. Sometimes the reporting of this gets very confused. I think, Tim, you'd be interested in this. The Business Council of Australia was one of our political donations according to one survey and so on. Of course, it's not a political entity at all, institution at all. There's other reasons why the number reads higher, but it's not political donations.
Chairman, we have received the following question from Mr. Peter Flynn. What is the future of Sydney Roadways once all the tunnels and overpasses are completed?
Yeah, that's a big question. The future of Sydney roadways when all the current works are completed. Well, I guess you can answer that lots and lots of different ways. The way I sort of think about is if you think about Transurban's vision in terms of strengthening communities through transport, while I suspect the New South Wales government doesn't use those same words, Scott, that's effectively what they're trying to do with the whole network in Sydney. Obviously, we're a major part of that with our roads, but not all of it by any stretch of the imagination. I suspect when they are all finished, then yeah, the network will work much, much better.
Combine that with just the advances in technology, the advances in terms of the more sustainable roads, in terms of the way in which they're built. As I say, there'll be use of technology. There'll be safer roads you would expect as a result of that. Scott, I don't know if you've got anything to add to that.
Clearly, there is a group of assets that have been completed that New South Wales has defined in its transport plan. There is a longer-term transport plan and more integrated transport with the roads, rail, active transport. There'll be future widenings that will need to be done based on the forecast that we can see. As Lindsay said, pointing out the technology and the use of technology over the next couple of decades to make the roads safer, more efficient, and provide additional capacity. We still see decades of additional enhancements, opportunities through either the use of physical enhancements, but also use of technical technology enhancements. It's still a very exciting sort of sector for us in relation to all of the cities.
The thing that really is beneficial to us is the demographics in the cities that we've chosen to invest in all are very strong, whether it's Northern Virginia, Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Montreal. They have very strong long-term growth characteristics and will need to help solve their transport problems, and that'll become more integrated over time. It's actually a pretty exciting time for us in the infrastructure space.
Thank you. Fiona?
Thank you, Chairman. We have received the following question from Mr. Nicholas Buckley. What additional steps can Transurban take to reduce the risk of email and text scams claiming to be unpaid invoices from Transurban?
Yeah. Thanks, Fiona. Thanks, Mr. Buckley. That's probably a question on many people's minds. These are called, and many of you will have been recipients of these. These are scams which are put to you as our customers. They're not actually coming through Transurban systems, which is a good thing for you as an investor in Transurban.
It's not as though our systems are coming under attack, but you will have got these presumably, many of you will have got them from other service industries in terms of your bank or perhaps your medical private medical provider and whatever, where the scammers are attempting to get data out of you and to open up an attachment so that you give him or her the access to banking details and so on. What we're doing is a couple of things.
One, as soon as we are aware of these scams and putting out the notices to you, hopefully in terms of text messages directly to you as a customer, or on our website, how to deal with it, how not to, urging you not obviously to open up the attachments and so on. The big deal here, I think, really is more with the telco providers. The telco providers and telco regulator, they're the people who can actually block the phone number that's actually sending you the message. We're in constant contact with them. They're the people who can pull down the malicious websites that are pretending to be Transurban. We do work very closely with the telcos on that. Scott, if you got anything to add to that.
Yeah. We do work with the telcos and the regulators, so we're working on that. We've shut down thousands of or blocked thousands of the URLs, which is the sites they try to get you. We've sent out over 5.1 million emails and communications to hopefully our customers, the ones that we do have their email address, to try and notify them of what the scam may look like and how we would formally communicate with you. Obviously, we have that information on our website if you're in any doubt. We're trying to do everything we can. We realize it's an inconvenience and it's an impact on all of us in the industry. The industry is very much alive to it, and we're working as hard as we can.
We spend a lot of time on it. Apologies for getting the nuisances. They're not coming from us. Please, if you have any doubt, come to our website. Hopefully you will have received our communications.
Thank you. Fiona?
Chairman, we've received no further general questions in advance of the meeting.
Thank you, Fiona. I'll now take questions on the presentations or Transurban in general from security holders here in the room. Are there any questions from those attending today? Thank you. Microphone number one.
Thank you, Chairman. We have a question from Michael Muntisov from the Australian Shareholders' Association.
Thank you. Michael, welcome.
Thank you. Good morning. My name's Michael Muntisov from the Australian Shareholders' Association. Today, I represent 441 shareholders and a total of more than 3 million shares in Transurban. Firstly, Chairman, as you're retiring at this meeting, the ASA would like to acknowledge the growth of Transurban that's occurred under your tenure. As a simple measure, for example, the market capitalization of Transurban has increased more than four-fold under your watch. The ASA has found you responsive to the needs of retail shareholders, and we valued your openness and transparency in forums like this. Thank you for your contribution.
That's very kind. Thank you.
Now to my questions.
That was the good news. Now here's the bad news.
For a company like Transurban that invests in major engineering projects and carries significant construction risks, board expertise in engineering and project management is important. Yet only three directors out of 11 have a genuine depth of knowledge and experience in this area. What is the board's plan to enhance the board's expertise in engineering and project management? And does management itself have sufficient depth of expertise in engineering and construction?
Yeah. Thank you. It's a very good question. The answer is, we believe we do have the right amount of expertise both at board level and at executive level. Remembering that we are not a construction company, we obviously are a major developer of projects as we've been talking through all through the morning, but we're not the actual construction company. But it is really important for the reasons you said, that we need to have expertise at both those levels to monitor what's going on on these ongoing projects. There are three deeply involved. Peter Scott, who's standing for election today, Peter is one of them.
A really extensive background, and we call on Peter while all of our decisions are a collective board decision on these areas, then we look to Peter for his expertise. Same for Mark Birrell. Mark, a different sort of background in infrastructure, not being an engineer, but immense experience in infrastructure in all sorts of different ways. Of course, we've got our CEO who, among other things, is a qualified engineer and very good at these issues. Obviously deep down through the organization, Hugh is here, Hugh's team, and obviously many of the people that work in the various states under Sue or Michelle or under Henry, then we've got that expertise in there.
In terms of the board deliberations, a lot of those people come into the boardroom and talk to us about what what their observations are supporting the papers that we're looking at. But no. I think, you know, and this is for Craig and the rest of the board to consider in the future, it's not lost on us that probably the next time we go somewhere, Craig, it may well be into that area in terms of the depth of the skills in that area. Thank you. Any other questions from the floor?
Thank you, Chairman. We've got John.
My name's John, Chairman. Sorry about that delay. I didn't have the blue card.
That's all right.
I only had the-
Thank you, John.
...the mailed form. Firstly, I've been a unitholder for a lot of years now, and I'd just like to say thanks to you as well over many years, and Michael Muntisov has just given some figures on it. My understanding has been that you and the MD has had a very close and very successful working relationship. I really hope the MD and the new chairman.
Yeah. I thought you were making an announcement there for a second.
No, I wasn't suggesting that at all. I'm sorry. No, no. The MD and the new chairman have such a good relationship. I have a couple of questions, but the first one relates to the West Gate Tunnel. I read a media report a few weeks ago that the soil from the tunnel was not badly contaminated at all, and in fact, it met all standards. All the delays, all the AUD billions of costs, all the protests, the whole thing was completely unnecessary. Is this correct? And if so, who is responsible for such a huge stuff-up? It is correct that there are very low levels of PFAS, and that was the chemical that everyone was worried about. There are very low levels of PFAS to date.
It may change, obviously, as we continue through with the tunneling. The issue is that after the signing of the West Gate Tunnel contract with both the government and the contractor, then the EPA changed the rules in relation to how much PFAS could be contained in the soil for it to be regarded as contaminated soil. There are only very few sites that are set up to take that amount of soil. That's what caused the issue. There were extensive delays in getting availability of a site and the site approved before the soil could be taken there.
That's fundamentally the reason why it went on for some years, and obviously, at some considerable cost, not only to Transurban, but to the government and to the builder.
Did you expect the soil is okay and did someone just stuff up the analysis or what happened?
Oh, no, it was because the rules changed. Yeah. The rules were changed. As you can imagine, before the contract is signed, then there is testing of the soil. Now, that would be the right thing for the construction company and Transurban as the sponsor, as the developer, to test the soil. All the results of those tests were that the soil was under the limit required by the EPA. The EPA took it from that limit down to here, and we had a different view. Scott?
Yeah. The mic comes on.
It'll come on.
Unfortunately, because the EPA changed the rules and the testing requirements, the amount of soil coming out of the site, you need to store the material before you can test it. The issue is you only have twenty. Basically, you have 24 hours of material storage, and it could take up to 20 days to test the material. To be able to have a place to store and test the material and to determine whether it was contaminated or not, you had to have a specific site. Unfortunately, whether the soil is contaminated or not, we had to develop a site, given the change in the rules, to be able to test it. To Lindsay's point, the EPA changed the rules, put us in a position that we had to get a site.
That took a long time in the process. Yes, there's been low levels of contamination and in fact, the actual contamination we found is at the very low levels. But we have found some, but we needed to have a dedicated site to be able to have the time to test it, because once production of the TBM start, you can't stop them. An unfortunate situation, but we thought, along with the government and the contractor, better to negotiate a commercial outcome than spend a decade in the courts working out where we'd get to.
I do have a second question. Now it's very quick. Atlas Arteria recently put a big investment into the Chicago Skyway, I think it's called. Did you have a look at that?
No, we didn't. We didn't because it's not effectively not on strategy for us. We are very. I think one of the things that investors like about Transurban is very clear in terms of the markets in which we operate, and who we partner with and where we spend our money so that we do look at other areas within North America. We're not just restricted to Virginia, Maryland, and Montreal. Or sorry, into Montreal. No, not that particular road.
Yeah. Thank you.
Thank you. Any other questions in the room before I go to online? Any questions online, please, Fiona?
Chairman, we have received the following question from Mr. Stephen Mayne. Best practice these days is for companies to disclose the proxies to the ASX along with the formal addresses. For instance, Steadfast Group did this today, and Origin Energy has been doing this since 2008. Given your past excellent track record on transparency, such as with participation rates in capital raisings, will you commit to doing this next year? Also, did any of the proxy advisors recommend a second strike on the remuneration report, and were you surprised by the proxy voting outcome?
Stephen, sorry you can't be here, but hello to you online. No, we're not lodging the details of where the proxies stand at 8:00 A.M. I don't think that'll be for the board to decide in the future. I suspect if the discussions go the same as we've had in the past, we won't be doing that in the future either. I'm not sure it is best practice. Some companies, good luck to them, might be doing it. We don't think it's right. We think it's better to wait and to hear all the discussion at the AGM in relation to resolutions before we put up proxy voting results. We just think that's more respectful for people in the room and participating in the meeting. That's our policy.
In terms of proxy advisors for this year, no, all the proxy advisors, including the ASA, who Mike, I'm sure, will speak to this later on, have recommended to vote alongside of our recommendations. They've recommended votes n favor of all of the resolutions 2, 3, 4 that you're about to go through today. Was there any other subpart question I'll cover? No? Thank you.
Chairman, we've received a further question from Mr. Stephen Mayne. How do we keep getting away with paying no corporate tax in Australia? Our utilization of tax losses fell from AUD 276 million in 2021 to AUD 193 million in 2022. In 2015, James Packer told the Crown Resorts AGM, I think people should be asking why Sydney Airport and Transurban aren't paying any more tax." Seven years later, when you are still paying no corporate tax, what is the answer to James Packer's question? Isn't it time we ditched the tax-effective stapled trust structure and just became a regular company with less tax-driven gearing and aggressive depreciation, and instead have proper participation in the dividend franking system?
Stephen Mayne, we're not getting away with anything. I think I've addressed this in this forum before, but it's a really important point, so thank you for raising it again. The facts are these, that Transurban, as everyone knows, as every security holder knows, invests in long-term, either by acquisition or development, huge long-term infrastructure projects. That requires a lot of upfront capital, and you've been kind enough to support us on that all the way through. A lot of upfront capital, and the profile of revenue from those roads, particularly if it's a greenfield road like West Gate Tunnel, builds very slowly and then up over a long concession period of 25 years or plus.
What that means is that, because we are able to depreciate those assets, from when they've completed, then Transurban makes losses in the early years, and it makes accounting losses, and it makes tax losses. If we didn't have the structure that we have, which is the stapled of the share and the trust, then we would not be able to pay distributions because you cannot pay distributions, dividends to shareholders out of losses. The trust stapled is set up for all the right reasons. It's absolutely common all around the world in terms of infrastructure companies for the reasons I've said. It works absolutely for investors. It's not as though we're deliberately not paying tax. In fact, some of our subsidiaries, the Eastern Distributor, for one, is a company, it pays tax.
You know, as recipients of the dividends, that you then have to pay tax on your distributions. If it comes through the trust, it's not taxed in a trust the way trusts work, but once it goes to you as a distribution, it's taxed by you as the receiver. I think, Michelle and Scott, we probably think over AUD 1 billion has been paid in tax.
AUD 1 billion or AUD 1.5 billion.
Yeah, AUD 1.5 billion has been paid in tax that way. The tax structure is absolutely right. It's absolutely, as endorsed by the federal government as it should be and encouraged by the federal government for the reasons I've just said.
Thank you, Chairman. We have a further question from Mr. Stephen Mayne. Why have we sat back and let IFM have a clear run at Atlas Arteria? Surely it would have been logical for Transurban to opportunistically build up a blocking stake in Atlas Arteria over the years when its share price was low. What is the status of our relationship with IFM in terms of them being a minority investor in assets we run? Is there an element of us staying out of the Atlas contest in order to preserve good relations with IFM and its constituent partners such as AustralianSuper, one of our partners in Brisbane?
You've got a lot of sub-questions, Stephen, all these questions. We didn't look at Atlas Arteria 'cause that's not on strategy. If our investors want to invest in Atlas Arteria, they'll do so directly. That would be totally inconsistent with what we profess to do as an organization. Involvement with IFM is more as a competitor than anything else. IFM would be
Yeah, IFM, let's say, we have a great relationship with IFM, but they compete against us. They're one of our equity investors. They have an infrastructure fund. They own our shares, and they're a partner with us in some of our roads. They're a big player in the industry, and we've got a relationship. Mostly, we've competed against them. We have won on most of those occasions, which is good. Yeah, Atlas Arteria owns a minority stake in a French toll road, and it's just not something that's the majority asset. It's something that fits strategy for us.
That's right. Yeah. I think, Stephen, you used the word opportunistic. That's not what we're about.
Thank you, Chairman. We have a further question from Mr. Stephen Mayne. The Victorian Government is setting up a state-owned tolling company to run the AUD 20 billion North East Link, which seems an enormous waste of money. Wouldn't it make more sense for Transurban to run the tolling system on a contract basis and ensure seamless interoperability? Could Scott Charlton please comment on whether we have any involvement with the North East Link and what he thinks about the model contractors, technology, and project scope being adopted by the Victorian Government? When fully built, will it be a good or bad for tolling revenue on our Melbourne assets?
The overall answer to the question is, Stephen, those decisions are up to the Victorian Government. Clearly, there's a role for public-private partnerships and therefore a role for Transurban in some aspects of the network, and other times governments choose to do it on their own balance sheets. Scott will be able to add to that.
Look, we're not involved with the North East Link at this time, but I think they're considering what tolling platform and how they may toll. We may participate in that as a 'cause we provide obviously tolling services in Victoria, if that makes sense. The governments choose, you know, all different methods of delivery and situations. You look at the size of that asset that's being delivered, which is, you know, depending on reports, AUD 15 billion plus, and the tolling is gonna be a small portion of the value of that asset. Over time, it'll be a good enhancement to the road network. It'll mean more economic activity, so we don't see it as having a material impact on our assets.
We think the continued growth of the city is probably more important, and we'll see what happens over the asset, over time. At this point in time, we're not involved, and we just see it as another, I guess, bow in the quiver of sort of governments. They choose how to deliver these projects, and where it works for us, then we will participate. We're not involved at this time.
Yep. Thank you.
Thank you, Chairman. We have no further online questions.
Good. Thank you. All right, so no more questions. I'll move to today's formal business. We have five items of business today, with the last item being a conditional resolution that will only be considered if the relevant conditions as set out in the notice of meetings are satisfied. Items two to four, and item five, if required, include resolutions that require a vote. Voting today will be conducted by way of a poll, and as I've said earlier, the poll on all resolutions is now open. After discussion on each resolution that requires a vote, we'll display proxies received on the presentation slides on your screen. That doesn't mean you have to vote now. You can wait to hear the questions and answers on each item and then vote, as voting will remain open until 10 minutes after the end of the meetings.
I will now outline the voting procedure. Ms. Doris Grave of Computershare, Transurban's security registry, will act as Returning Officer, and I appoint Mr. Marcus Laithwaite of PwC, the group's auditor, to be the scrutineer for all of our resolutions. If you are an eligible security holder, a representative or attorney of an eligible security holder, or a proxy for an eligible security holder, you are entitled to vote. For those attending the meetings in person, at registration you should have been issued with a blue admission and voting card. If you are representing or you are a proxy for more than one security holder, you'll have been provided with a separate admission and voting card for each separate capacity in which you are attending the meetings. Relevant voting instructions are printed on the reverse of your blue card.
When you complete your card, please indicate the manner in which the votes are to be cast by placing a mark in the for, against, or abstain box for each resolution. If you have difficulty in completing your voting card, please raise your hand and a representative from Computershare is here to assist you. You do not need to put the percentage or the number of votes you are voting unless you wish to do so. Before placing your voting card in the collection box, please ensure that you print your name at the bottom of the card. At the conclusion of the meetings, please place your voting card in one of the collection boxes located near the exit. Now, if you're attending the meetings online and you are eligible to vote, a Vote icon will appear on your screen.
Selecting this icon will bring up the list of resolutions and present you with your voting options. Again, to cast your vote, simply select one of the options for, against, or abstain for each of the resolutions. A tick will appear to confirm receipt of your vote. You can change your vote at any time until the poll is closed by selecting Click here to change your vote. The results of today's meetings will be announced following the meetings on the ASX and on Transurban's website. Proxy holders, a reminder that you must vote in accordance with the proxy holder's directions. Any directed proxies that are not voted at the meetings will automatically default to me as Chair of the meetings, and I am required to vote those proxies as directed.
All proxies that are open and available to the Chair of the meetings will be voted in favor of the resolutions for items 2 to 4 and against the resolution for item 5, if required to be put to the meetings. I'll now move to the first item. Item one is the receipt and consideration of the Transurban Group financial report for the year ended 30 June 2022. This has been approved by your board and provided to you with Transurban's 2022 corporate report. It is also available on Transurban's website. There is no need to pass any resolution on the financial report. However, security holders and proxy holders are welcome to ask questions in relation to the accounts or the overall activities of the group.
Security holders and proxy holders will also be given a reasonable opportunity to ask questions of Mr. Marcus Laithwaite of PwC, the group's auditor, relevant to the conduct of the audit, the preparation and content of the auditor's report, the accounting policies adopted in preparing the financial statements, and the auditor's independence. All questions to the auditor should, in the first instance, be addressed to me as Chairman, and if appropriate, I'll ask Mr. Laithwaite to address the meetings. I'll now take questions from security holders attending the meeting in person. Are there any questions on the accounts? No? Thank you. Perhaps questions from any security holders online.
Chairman, we have received no questions online in the absence of the item.
Thank you. Given there are no questions, I'll now move to consideration of the resolutions. Item two of business on the agenda concerns the election and re-election of directors. Marina Go was appointed as an independent non-executive director in December 2021. Marina is currently a member of the nomination committee. Marina's worked in executive roles across a range of listed and private companies and in non-executive director roles across a diverse range of sectors. Her executive career included over 25 years' experience in brand, marketing, digital technologies, and change leadership in the media industry. She is chair of Adore Beauty Group and a non-executive director of Energy Australia, 7-Eleven, and Autos ports Group. A copy of Marina's bio is set out in the notice of meetings. In accordance with the constitutions of Transurban Holdings Limited and Transurban International Limited, Marina Go offers herself for election.
I reconfirm the board's view that Marina brings extensive leadership experience in the media industry and as a non-executive director in a broad range of sectors, and her expertise in brand, customer, and community interactions with a focus on innovation is highly regarded by the board. In recommending her election, the board notes that Marina has confirmed that she will continue to have sufficient capacity to fulfill her duties as a director of Transurban Group and recognizes her contributions as an experienced, diligent, and committed director. The directors, in the absence of Marina, unanimously recommend her election. I'll now ask Marina to address the meetings. Thank you.
Thank you, Lindsay. Good afternoon, fellow security holders. I joined the Transurban board on December 1, 2021, and as well as serving on the nomination committee, I've spent the past 10 months attending the Remuneration, People, and Culture Committee and the Audit and Risk Committee meetings as an observer in order to get up to speed quickly. My executive experience included being the CEO of a digital media company and leading a global joint venture multimedia organization with a reporting line to the U.S. Since transitioning to a non-executive director career, I've served as a chairman and non-executive director on ASX-listed companies, private companies, and not-for-profit organizations across a range of sectors, including energy, retail, and health. I'm also an experienced People and Remuneration Committee chair, Audit and Risk Committee member, and Sustainability Committee member.
I have a particular interest in convenience and mobility and a passion for making a difference, and that has shaped my board portfolio career. I believe that my contribution to the Transurban board is through my customer focus and experience with digital technology, reputational risk, stakeholder engagement, and diversity and inclusion. I also bring diversity to the board through gender, cultural diversity, industry experience, and background. I lead a full and rewarding career as a non-executive director, and I have the time to devote to my role as an independent non-executive director of Transurban, as I have demonstrated since joining. I hope that you will elect me to the board as it's an organization that I'm honored to serve. Thank you.
Thank you, Marina. Well done. I'll now take questions from security holders attending the meetings in person. Any questions in from the room, please? No? Fiona, any questions online, please?
Chairman, we have received a question from Mr. Stephen Mayne. Marina Go has just resigned as chairman of Netball Australia after this blow-up with Gina Rinehart's AUD 15 million sponsorship deal. Her record at Adore Beauty and Pro-Pac Packaging has also been checkered from a share price perspective. Could she explain what happened at all three of these organizations and what lessons she has learned from these experiences that will add value at Transurban?
Stephen, perhaps I'll deal with that. I don't think it's appropriate to talk through other companies' issues in this forum at a Transurban AGM. What I can say from my own experience, I'm sure all my colleagues around the table would agree with this, that none of our non-executive careers are absolutely pristine in terms of everything going perfectly. Part of what I look for, we look for when we're looking for new directors are people that have had experience. Directors that have had experience with the good times and the bad times, and how they've worked through those issues, and how the companies have worked through them as well.
you know, I think part of all of Marina's experience, just as the same for everyone else, is adds to what we get from Marina in terms of a director.
Thank you, Chairman. We have no further online questions.
Thank you. As there are no more questions, we now show the proxies received in respect to this resolution on the screen. I now move that Marina Go be elected as a director. Please submit your vote by selecting one of the options available if you have not already done so. Pretty impressive numbers, Marina.
Yeah.
High, highest ever.
I now move to the proposed re-election of Peter Scott as a non-executive director. Peter was appointed as an independent non-executive director in March of 2016. He's a member of the Audit and Risk Committee and the Nomination Committee. Peter has over 20 years senior business experience in publicly listed companies and a breadth of experience in the engineering and finance sectors. His pro bono activities include being chair of Igniting Change Limited, a not-for-profit organization, and a fellow of the Senate of the University of Sydney. He's currently a non-executive director of Centuria Healthcare Limited. A copy of Peter's bio is set out in the notice of meetings. In accordance with the constitutions of Transurban Holdings Limited and Transurban International Limited, Peter offers himself for re-election.
I reconfirm the board's view that Peter continues to make a highly important contribution to this board, and given his extensive experience in the engineering and infrastructure sector, in major project development and management and delivery, and his role as a member of the Audit and Risk Committee and a member of the Nomination Committee. Peter has an established track record as a completely engaged and fully prepared director, and his workload has remained consistent during his time on our board. In recommending his re-election, the board notes that Peter has confirmed that he will continue to have sufficient capacity to fulfill his duties as a director of Transurban Group, and we recognize his contributions as an experienced, diligent, and committed director. The directors, in the absence of Peter, unanimously recommend his re-election. I shall now ask Peter to address the meetings.
Thank you, Lindsay, and good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I have had the privilege of being on the Transurban board since the first of March, 2016, and I have served on the Audit and Risk Committee and the Nominations Committee during that time. My professional executive experience included being a CEO in the consulting engineering, design and construction, property, and financial services industries. Following my executive career, I've served as a chairman and a non-executive director on a mix of ASX-listed companies, not-for-profit organizations, and private companies, spanning the engineering, design, property and financial services sector. I believe I have a well-rounded business judgment and a clear understanding on the importance of a team-based approach. I believe my contribution to the Transurban board is informed by my experience in the delivery of major physical assets.
With the role of a non-executive director becoming increasingly more complex and demanding, I believe that I have the time, the energy, and an independent view to fulfill the role of a non-executive director of your company. I look forward to continuing to serve Transurban, should you approve of my re-election today. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Peter. Again, I'll now take questions from security holders attending the meeting in person. Any questions on this resolution? No. Thank you. Fiona, anything online?
Chairman, we have a question from Mr. Stephen Mayne. In 2019, Treasury Wine Estates voluntarily moved to annual elections for directors in line with best practice that occurs in both the U.S. and the U.K. Dual-listed companies like News Corp and Rio Tinto all do this due to the laws in the U.S. and the U.K., and BHP has voluntarily continued doing it even after its U.K. DLC ended last year. Can you, Chair Craig Drummond, and Peter Scott both comment on whether they will support following the TWE model of annual elections for directors at the 2023 AGM to continue Transurban's excellent track record of best practice transparency?
Stephen, I might deal with that one as well. My personal view is there's quite a lot of merit in annual elections, but it's a matter which this board has considered in the past, and we've not moved away from what is normal practice in Australia. I think I can commit on behalf of Craig and Peter and every other board member, they'll continue to address that. That's not something that I suspect neither Craig nor Peter would want to form a view on the spot here today, but just something to carry forward and to think about for the future. Thank you.
Thank you, Chairman. We have no further online questions.
Thank you. Thanks, Fiona. As there are no more questions, we now show the proxies received on this resolution on the screen, and I now move that Peter Scott be re-elected as a director. Please submit your vote by selecting one of the options available if you've not already done so. Item 3 of business on the agenda is the adoption of the remuneration report of Transurban Holdings Limited and Transurban International Limited for the financial year ended 30 June 2022. At last year's annual general meetings, the 2021 remuneration report received a first strike, as just over 25% of the votes were cast against the adoption of that remuneration report. As stated earlier in my address, the board has worked hard to address the issues that were of most concern to our security holders.
Transurban's remuneration strategy is designed to support and reinforce our business strategy, including the creation of sustainable long-term growth. The report aims to provide you with an understanding of the links between Transurban's strategy on the one hand, its performance, and then its executive remuneration, as well as the framework we have in place to ensure effective governance of remuneration matters. The report also details the FY22 remuneration arrangements and outcomes for our directors and for our senior executives. In determining the remuneration outcomes for FY22, the board took into consideration performance and achievements in another COVID-19 impacted year, as well as the additional cost of investment which has crystallized with the settlement of the West Gate Tunnel project dispute.
The overall FY 2022 STI outcome, short-term incentive outcome, was 85.3% after the board exercised its discretion to reduce the proportional net cost outcome from 150% to 90% to reflect the fact that the benefit of some cost savings were not directly attributable to management efforts, but partially due to prevailing market conditions. In assessing the performance of the CEO and the executive KMP, the board considered all factors that have contributed to the overall group result, including West Gate Tunnel project accountability. As a result, the short-term incentive outcomes for executives range between 43% and 88% of target, which represents 28%-59% of maximum STI opportunity. The board considers the resulting STI outcomes to be aligned with the experience and expectations of you as security holders.
Today, if 25% or more of the votes on item 3 are cast against adopting our 2022 remuneration report, this will constitute a second strike, and we will be required to put the resolution to item 5 to the meetings, which relates to voting on whether to hold a spill resolution. We have received, I think, some pre-submitted questions, Fiona.
Thank you, Chairman. We've received a question from Mr. Peter Parsons. What is the multiple of the CEO's remuneration package to that of non-executive employees, and what is the multiple of executives' mean remuneration package to that of non-executive employees?
This is not a number that I normally think about, but we've done the research, Mr. Parsons. In terms of fixed pay, the multiple's around 14x for CEO to average, and for the group executive, around 6x-7x. As I say, it's not something which we concentrate on. The fact is that, Transurban wants to attract the best possible people in every position that we have at Transurban, and to a large extent, we're successful in doing that. We do that by paying market rates. We're not. We don't pay under market, certainly. We don't pay excessively either. We look to see who the right people are to come in and remunerate them. We're often benchmarking, obviously, clearly for the CEO and the group executive detailed benchmarking.
Even right through the organization, the people leaders will be benchmarking to make sure that we're competitive in our pay.
We have no further online questions in advance of the meeting.
Thanks in advance. The voting orders will go back to the room. If there are any questions in relation to the Remuneration Report in the room, please.
Thank you, Chairman. Question from Michael Muntisov from the ASA.
Thank you, Mark.
At this point, in the meeting, there's an expectation that the ASA usually asks a probing question on remuneration. However, the changes that have been made to Transurban's remuneration plan, including the reintroduction of the free cash flow measure, the use of a four-year measurement period, and the disclosure of actual remuneration in the annual report, means that Transurban's remuneration scheme largely meets ASA's guidelines. Therefore, ASA will be voting in favor of the remuneration report. Thank you.
Thank you, Michael Muntisov. What a wonderful farewell present. Thank you. Any other questions in the room? No. Fiona Last, questions online.
Chairman, we have no further questions online.
Thank you. No further questions. We now show the proxies for this resolution on the screen. I now move that security holders adopt the remuneration report for the financial year ending 3 June 2022. I set out the notice of the meeting. A voting exclusion applies to this item of business. For those eligible to vote, please submit your vote by selecting one of the options available if you have not already done so. Based on the proxies received prior to the meetings, with those figures, if you haven't got your calculator there, it's 94.72% in favor of adopting the remuneration report. Having regard to the number of security holders attending today's meetings, I'm pleased to see that Transurban will not receive a second strike. I thank security holders for their support on this item.
Item four on the agenda is the approval of the grant to the CEO, Scott Charlton, of performance awards under the group's long-term incentive plan. The terms of the proposed grant to the CEO are set out in the explanatory notes in the notice of meetings. If security holder approval is obtained, performance awards will be granted to the CEO as part of his FY 23 remuneration package. Each performance award entitles the CEO to one fully paid ordinary Transurban stapled security, subject, of course, to satisfaction of the specified performance measures. As detailed in the notice of meetings, the performance awards to be granted to the CEO for this year will be subject to two equally weighted performance measures over a 4-year performance period. The first measure is relative total shareholder return, TSR, measured against a bespoke comparator group.
The second measure is free cash flow per security, which reflects the Transurban Group's focus on maximizing free cash to derive security holder return. Approval is being sought to grant a total number of performance awards to the CEO not exceeding 270,048. Again, I think we received a pre-submitted question, which I'll deal with first, Fiona.
Thank you, Chairman. We received the following question from Mr. Peter Parsons: What is the point of placing item four before owners if the board can decide to pay a cash equivalent performance award?
Thank you. Just a couple of points. If the performance awards turn into shares, then Transurban will issue shares. Therefore, by law, we need to place it before the AGM, before security holders. More to the point of the question is that obviously there's a contract with the CEO, as there is with each of the group executives, and long-term incentive forms part of that contract, so we can't just waive that or cancel that part of the contract. Clearly, though, it's important to put the matter to the meeting because if there's a large pushback against it, then we would understand why, and then that would flow into the following year in terms of a discussion in terms of a possible renegotiation.
That's why our company and most of the other companies you invest in put these sorts of resolutions to security holders.
Chairman, we've not received no further questions on this item in advance of the meeting.
Thank you. Are there any questions from the floor on this item, please? Nothing else, Fiona?
Chairman, we have received a further question from Mr. Stephen Mayne on this item.
Mm-hmm.
Given the interesting discussions across a range of topics today, including on this LTI grant, could the incoming chair undertake to make an archived copy of the webcast plus a full transcript of proceedings available on the company's website? You've published webcasts the past two years, but never got a board transcript to train. The likes of Nine, AGL, ASX, ANZ, CIMIC, Domino's, G8 Education, and Lendlease all produced their first AGM transcripts in 2021. Will you follow suit today?
Stephen, it's not a matter the board's considered so far. I think, Craig, we take that on notice, for future years. As Stephen's pointed out, we do, as the webcast will be available, so if people listen to the whole AGM, the speeches are up from 8:30 A.M. this morning. We've always regarded that as being sufficient, but happy to take that on notice.
Chairman, we've received the following question from Mr. Stephen Mayne. When disclosing the outcome of voting on all resolutions today, including this LTI grant for the CEO, could you please advise the ASX how many shareholders voted for and against each item, similar to what happens when a scheme of arrangement? This will better provide a better gauge of retail shareholder sentiment on all resolutions and was a disclosure initiative adopted by the likes of Metcash, Altium, and Dexus after their 2021 AGMs.
Thank you again. We're not set up to do that for today, but without pushing everything down the furrow, Craig, that's, I'm sure, something that the board will consider for next year. Yeah.
Thank you, Chairman. We've received no further questions on this item.
Thank you. As there are no more questions, now show the proxies on this resolution on the screen. I now move that the security holders approve the grant to the CEO, Scott Charlton, of up to 270,048 performance awards under the group's long-term incentive plan on the terms summarized in the explanatory notes of the meeting. As set out in the notice of meetings, a voting exclusion applies to this item of business, and for those eligible to vote, please submit your vote by selecting one of the options available if you've not already done so. I now turn to the final item of business. As the remuneration report will not receive a second strike, I will not be putting item five, and I don't need to put item five, the conditional spill resolution to the meetings.
Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes the business of the meetings, and all that remains now is to complete the poll by submitting your votes. If you've not already done so, please complete your voting now. For those attending the meetings in person, please lodge your completed voting cards in one of the collection boxes located near the exit. If you require assistance, ComputerShare representatives are here to help. Please raise your hand if indeed you need assistance. The poll will close 10 minutes after the conclusion of the meetings. Rather than delay the closing of the meetings, the results of each poll will be announced to the ASX and published on the Transurban's website once the votes have been counted and checked.
Before I close my last AGM for Transurban, I would like to again extend my thanks to security holders and to my colleagues on the board and the executive team for your support over the past 14 years. I thank you for your attendance and participation at meetings today and declare the annual general meetings of Transurban Holdings Limited and Transurban Infrastructure Limited and the meeting of Transurban Holding Trust closed. For those attending in person, please join me. Thank you.