Good morning, shareholders. I'm Nic McKechnie. I am the Communications Executive at Telstra, and it's my pleasure to be your MC today. Before we start official proceedings, I'd like to welcome to the stage Aunty Norma Ingram.
[Foreign language] Morning everyone, how are we? We have fun getting here this morning? It is my great pleasure and responsibility to welcome you to Country this morning for your AGM. I want to acknowledge all of you for being here. I think you've got some bosses or something here as well, I think. But it is a big responsibility for me. I'm Aunty Norma Ingram. Aboriginal protocol is that Aboriginal elders are called Aunty or Uncle, so I'm okay, Norma, Aunty Norma, just don't call me late for dinner. But I always love to do an Aboriginal Welcome to Country, because it is so important. I'm from Midwestern New South Wales, a town called Cowra, just past Bathurst. It's my mother's mother's traditional Country, and I could trace my ancestry back through her, way back before Captain Arthur Phillip came.
My father is Riverina, but I have lived on Gadigal Country, where we are today, for many, many years, and I am a acknowledged and recognized and respected Aboriginal elder in this community. So I want to acknowledge that we're on the traditional lands of the Gadigal peoples of the Eora Nation. The Gadigal is one of 29 small clan groups. That is Sydney area out to Redfern, Waterloo. The Gadigal, like all of our over 200 Aboriginal nations or language groups that we have right across this country, have cared for this country for over 60,000 years. I've got to tell you, my friends, 60,000 is really a Western concept.
We always say, "We've been here since the Dreamtime, and we will continue to be here." I'm so proud that I can say I belong to the longest continuous practiced culture on the entire planet. So you can see, go anywhere in Australia, you can see Aboriginal culture practiced as it was practiced 60,000 years ago. One of our major, I guess, aspects of Aboriginal culture is our kinship system. So our kinship system is not just our human relatives, they are our fauna and flora, our animals and our plants. And so what we say is we have a respect, responsibility, and reciprocity. So it is our responsibility as Aboriginal people and as Aboriginal elders to look after Country, to look after our family, our animals, our plants.
Because what it means is that if we look after them, they can look after us. And it's what Aboriginal Welcome to Country is all about. It's about acknowledging Mother Earth. It's about saying, "Yes, Mother Earth," but it's far more than that. It's about acknowledging that 60,000 years of culture. It's about acknowledging the people who've taken care and continue to take care. And you know, as Australians, you also have a part to play in that as well, and it shouldn't be just up to Aboriginal people to care for Country. This is our Country. But we praise Mother Earth, and we pay responsibility to her, through our art, our songs, our dances, our stories. And if you look at the Gadigal, the Gadigal are sunrise people. They are saltwater. Their totem is the whale.
So all of those things are very important to us as Aboriginal people, with our 200 Aboriginal nations right across this country, and we will continue to look after Country. We will continue to pay respect. I want to acknowledge elders, most certainly Aboriginal elders right across our Country. The elders who have gone before us, our elders who are here with us now. And I want to acknowledge elders from other nations and other countries. So important because they are the ones who have set the footprints. They are the ones who hold the history, who hold the law, and who guide us if we just want to have a look and just pay attention to what they're doing. So I just want to congratulate Telstra.
I was looking at the videos, and I thought, "Geez, we've come a long way since we sent up the smoke signals, haven't we?" Telstra, I looked at that and I thought, "Telstra is still able to work with our traditional owners, our Aboriginal people, our custodians, still able to work with them, looking at ancient knowledge, ancient cultures, with modern-day technology." So I do look at that, and I thank Telstra for making those connections because, as I said, and I continue to say, our people continue to look after Country, and it's really great that Telstra can do that and work with our people so that we're not losing our land... so that we're not digging up our land without doing it the right way and the respectful way.
So I just want to congratulate you on your AGM, your Annual General Meeting. I just do wanna say it's been a great pleasure. We have not, as Aboriginal people in this country, have not ceded our lands. We have never signed any treaty, so it's great that we can work with, with people, with companies in this, in this country. So what I say, when you get the chance, take off those shoes and those socks, stand on Mother Earth, feel her power, whether it's sand or dirt or grass or whatever, stand there and you will feel the power. Talk to Mother Earth. Tell her that you respect her. Tell her that you will look after her, and then she will look after you. So, as we always say, always was, always is, always will be Aboriginal country. Let's think about that.
And I want to thank you all, and I want to welcome you to Aboriginal Country, welcome you to Gadigal Country, and just continue to think about that and how we can pay respect to Mother Earth and really look after her. So thank you, everybody. Welcome to Country, and enjoy your AGM, and make some good decisions. Thank you.
Well, thank you so much, Aunty Norma. I, for one, will look forward to taking my shoes off afterwards and connecting with the Earth. But it's so important that we do all listen and learn, and so that was a wonderful Welcome to Country, and thank you very much. Well, welcome to everyone in the room today. It's great to see so many shareholders here today after not being able to meet in person for the last few years. Welcome also to everyone joining us online here today from wherever you may be. Today is a special day for us, as we have not one but two shareholder meetings. This is the first one, our Annual General Meeting. Once we've finished our AGM, after a short break, we'll hold the second meeting, which is the Scheme Meeting for our proposed corporate restructure.
We'll be serving a light lunch at around midday today. However, if the AGM has not finished by that time, we will not be adjourning for lunch. This is our first-ever hybrid AGM, with shareholders joining us in person, online, and by phone. It's going to run a little differently to previous meetings. For those of you here in the room, you here today, you'll have been given a card when you registered this morning. Yellow cards are for shareholders who may speak and vote. Blue cards are for shareholders who may speak but not vote. You will need your card to ask a question or to reenter the meeting, and you can see those details from the slide up behind me.
If you have any queries about how to vote, please speak with one of our staff in the room, who'll be very happy to help you, or in the shareholder registration area outside, and they'll also be happy to assist you. The procedure on how to ask a question in the room is being shown on the screen. For shareholders joining us online, on your screen, you'll see our virtual meetings guide. This contains all of the information you'll need about how to vote and ask questions. You can also call the help number that's shown on your screen if you're having any difficulties. In terms of how we'll manage shareholder questions today, for each question session, we'll deal with questions from the floor here first. Then we'll move to online questions, followed by phone questions.
I'll be reading the online questions to the chairman, as they have been written by the shareholders. If we can't answer your questions fully or we can't get through all of the questions today, we'll certainly respond to any unanswered questions after the meeting, either directly or through the answers to common questions, which we will put up on our AGM website. If you have an individual customer or shareholder issue, please speak with one of our customer service staff here today, who again, will be very happy to assist you. For shareholders submitting questions online, one of our customer service or share registry staff will be in touch with you after the meeting. For shareholders joining us online, the online platform is now open, and I would encourage you to submit any questions that you have now.
With all of those procedural matters out of the way, I'd like to hand over to your Chairman, John Mullen.
Great. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. My name is John, John Mullen, and it's my great pleasure to welcome you this morning to our 2022 Annual General Meeting. Thanks very much to everyone for joining us and for your continued support and investment in Telstra. Can I also start by saying how delighted I am to be back speaking to a room full of real people and shareholders once again? But as Nic said, this, of course, is a hybrid meeting, so a very warm welcome to the many shareholders who have chosen to join us online. A quorum is present, and therefore, it's my pleasure to formally declare today's meeting open. A Notice of Meeting was distributed earlier, setting out the business and resolutions to be considered today, and I propose to take that notice as read.
There are a number of items of business on today's agenda, and all of them are now being shown on the screen. Voting on items three to five will be conducted by poll, and that poll is now open. Instructions on how to participate in the poll were distributed earlier, but assistance is available at any time should you need it. It's important to also point out that following the AGM, after a short break, we will reconvene for a separate Scheme Meeting. The Scheme Meeting is to seek shareholder approval on the scheme of arrangement, the next step in our proposed corporate restructure. The restructure was a key component of our T22 strategy, and is now a key part of our new T25 strategy that was announced last year.
As we'll discuss at the Scheme Meeting itself, the restructure is an important next step in our drive to increase the transparency of our infrastructure assets and to improve management focus on our infrastructure and customer businesses, and consequently, provide us with more flexibility to create additional value for you, our shareholders. Now, I'm very pleased to be joined on stage today by all of my fellow board members, Company Secretary, Sue Laver, and our CFO, Michael Ackland. Current directors, Craig Dunn and Eelco Blok, are also both standing for re-election today, and you'll hear from each of them shortly. Sarah Lowe, from our auditors, Ernst & Young, is also here today, and I'm sure that she'd be very happy to answer any questions that you may have on the conduct of the audit or on the auditor's report itself.
Our senior management team is also present, and in many ways, today marks the end of one era for the company and the beginning of another. Shortly, you'll hear from your new CEO, Vicki Brady, whose appointment followed the decision earlier this year by Andy Penn to retire after more than seven years in the role. Now, Vicki is a highly capable and professional executive, and she could scarcely be better qualified to lead Telstra into this new era. Vicki was previously Telstra's Chief Financial Officer, as well as before that, managing our largest business segment, being Consumer and Small Business. As a result, she knows our company inside out, and she's made an enormous contribution to the company already, including through her work in helping develop our new go-to-market plans as part of the T22 strategy.
Vicki also played a key leadership role in the development of the T25 strategy, which is going to be absolutely critical to the success of the company going forward. And I, and the board, believe that she is therefore the ideal person to lead Telstra into its next phase of growth. Then let me now also take the opportunity to offer a special vote of thanks to Andy, to Andy Penn, for his incredible contribution to Telstra. Andy led the company during a period of significant change, and he will be remembered for his courage in setting a bold ambition through T22 to deliver a transformed experience for customers, shareholders, and employees. And there is no doubt that T22 has delivered beyond expectations. It's also laid the foundations for the T25 strategy and our renewed focus on growth and innovation.
In recent years, Andy not only ensured the successful delivery of our T22 commitments, but also provided outstanding leadership during what has truly been an extraordinary time, as we have navigated, both as a company and a nation, through the challenges of the pandemic. Andy also built a very strong leadership team, and perhaps the greatest testament to this was our ability to announce internal successors to the roles of both CEO and CFO, and we were thrilled, therefore, to announce Vicki and Michael in these roles earlier this year. Now, without Andy's exemplary leadership, I think it's safe to say Telstra simply would not be in the strong position that it is today. So on behalf of the board and shareholders, I would formally like to thank Andy for the extraordinary contribution he made to Telstra, and to congratulate Vicki on her new appointment.
Right, and let me now turn, excuse me, to, the company's recent performance, and in particular, the successful completion this year of our T22 strategy. I think it's fair to say that four years ago, when we launched T22, Telstra was in a very difficult position. We'd seen the rate of digital adoption accelerate rapidly, along with customer expectations for a seamless digital experience. We knew that we had to respond boldly to the enormous impact that the creation of the NBN would have on Telstra, and we knew that we had to radically simplify and digitize Telstra, and once and for all, try to remove the customer pain points that had frustrated our customers and our teams for too long.
Now, we knew all of this when we launched T22 in 2018 and embarked on what has been one of the largest and most ambitious transformations of a telco globally. The strategy leveraged many of the significant capabilities that we had already built through the strategic investment of $3 billion to create the networks for the future and to digitize the business. This year, I'm delighted to report the past four years of discipline, focus, and hard work have really paid off, and the underlying business of your company grew again in fiscal year 2022, and we are now positioned for continued growth. Our investments in innovation and technology, in digitalization, in networks, in improving our customer experiences and ways of working, and our disciplined approach to capital management, mean that Telstra today is a fundamentally different company with an incredibly bright future.
Vicki will take you through the financial highlights shortly, but I wanted to touch on just some of the key achievements made under T22. That we have famously reduced the number of in-market products and services for our consumer customers from 1,800 to just 20, and stripped away the lock-in contracts, excess data, and the other charges that used to frustrate our customers. Our 5G network now is the largest and fastest in the country, covering 80% of the population, and it's among the very best globally. Our total network now covers some 99.5% of all Australians and stands at over 2.6 million sq km. We have completely modernized and digitized our systems.
Our direct headcount has been reduced by approximately 8,000, but simultaneously, we've recruited 1,500 new hires in software engineering, data analytics, artificial intelligence, and cybersecurity. Our cybersecurity capabilities are now considerable, and our teams are working around the clock to protect our networks and our customers from unprecedented levels of malicious activity. In the last 12 months alone, we have blocked more than 1 billion malicious emails, 200 million scam calls, and we're currently blocking 1,500 scam texts every minute of every day. We know how many still get through, so it shows the magnitude of the problem we're facing. Another significant change has been to bring our Consumer and Small Business contact centers back on shore.
I've been a member of the Telstra board for 14 years now, and chairman for the past 6, and I don't think there's been a single AGM where we have not faced questions from shareholders about offshore contact centers. Well, I'm delighted to say that those days are over. Over the past months, we have hired around 2,000 new team members across the country, so we can answer Consumer and Small Business calls in Australia and create a better customer experience. Our commitment to hybrid working also means that those new team members are located in cities and towns across Australia, including regional hubs like Maryborough, Bunbury, and Bathurst. Thanks to hybrid working, that means that the person helping you could be in your state, your suburb, your town, or who knows, even your street.
On any given day, 9 out of 10 of our Consumer and Small Business service team choose to work from home. Another significant change this year concerned our licensee stores, which have all been brought back in-house and are now Telstra owned and operated. Almost half of all sales interactions and more than three-quarters of all service interactions with Consumer and Small Business customers are now digital. The benefits of a better system are tangible, and the number of calls now coming into Telstra's Consumer and Small Business contact centers has fallen by more than 70%. These improvements are also reflected in our Episode Net Promoter Score results, which are stronger than ever, improving 5 points in the last 12 months and 18 points since the T22 program began.
Fiscal year 2022 was also a pivotal year for Telstra financially, as we saw the near final negative transitional effects of the NBN rollout in our reported results and the growing momentum in our underlying performance. Vicki will talk to you more about our FY 2022 results in a minute, but it was especially pleasing to be able to increase the total dividend for the first time in quite a few years. The increase recognized the confidence of the board following the success of our T22 strategy and the ambition in our T25 strategy of high teens earnings per share growth from fiscal year 2021 to fiscal year 2025. Inside the business, the adoption of Agile at scale work practices has transformed our approach to prioritization and resource allocation, so that we are faster to market, more efficient, and more customer-focused.
We also continued to look for opportunities to grow our business and to unlock value from our infrastructure assets. Last year, we finalized a significant transaction with a consortium made up of the Future Fund, Commonwealth Superannuation Corporation, and the Sunsuper to sell a non-controlling 49% interest in our InfraCo Towers business for AUD 2.8 billion. Importantly, we retained 51% ownership of the Towers business, now called Amplitel, and retained full ownership of the active parts of our network, ensuring that we can continue to maintain our network leadership. Approximately 50% or AUD 1.35 billion of the net proceeds of this deal was indirectly returned to shareholders during fiscal year 2022 via an on-market share buyback. We also invested AUD 75 million of the proceeds to further enhance connectivity in regional areas.
The remainder of the proceeds we used for debt reduction to ensure that we maintain balance sheet strength and flexibility. In October last year, we announced the acquisition in partnership with the Australian Government of Digicel Pacific, adding a leading mobile business in PNG, Fiji, Vanuatu, Tonga, Nauru, and Samoa, with 2.8 million customers to our international business. We completed this acquisition in July of this year. Our Intercity Fibre project , announced in February, will provide ultra-fast connectivity between capital cities and improved regional connectivity. We have finalized contract negotiations for the first stages of the build, and we've held detailed discussions with customers, including signing up Microsoft as a major anchor tenant.
In satellites, Telstra will build and manage the ground infrastructure and fiber network in Australia for Viasat's new Series 3 satellite system and construct a major fiber project to build state-of-the-art intercity dual fiber paths across the country. We also announced an MoU, a memorandum of understanding, with low-Earth orbit provider OneWeb, and are working towards building a commercial relationship with testing their network underway as well. Telstra Health was selected to deliver the 1800RESPECT service for an initial five years at an estimated value of around AUD 200 million.... adding to the strategic health software of the company, acquisitions in GP practice management and specialist billing and clinical coding. Through all of this activity, we continue to build on our work to be a leading responsible business.
Now, we know that businesses can only be successful in delivering sustained value for their shareholders if their customers, employees, and communities are also successful. Our commitment takes many forms. It includes significant action on climate change, where we were certified by the Australian government's Climate Active program as carbon neutral in 2020, and continue progressing towards our other two climate targets to enable renewable energy generation equivalent to 100% of our consumption by 2025, and reducing absolute emissions by at least 50% by 2030. At the same time, too many Australians, and particularly vulnerable Australians in difficult circumstances, are at risk of being left behind in the digital age and becoming even more marginalized.
Telstra has a key role to play here, building access through our network investment, ensuring our products and services are affordable, and by supporting a range of programs to build digital skills. We're also providing more network coverage to more people in remote and regional areas. Over the 7 years to the end of fiscal year 2022, Telstra will have invested AUD 11 billion in our mobile network nationally, with AUD 4 billion of this invested in our regional mobile network, providing additional capacity and new and improved coverage. Last year, we also announced significant forward investments, including AUD 150 million in regional investment for fiscal year 2022, and an additional AUD 200 million co-investment fund to improve regional connectivity over the next 4 years.
This work continues to shape Telstra as a responsible, sustainable, and community-minded organization, one that is purpose-led and values-driven, and we're very proud of this work. Looking ahead, the company has now moved from T22 to T25. T25 marks a really exciting new era again in Telstra's history, one that will see us accelerate growth from our core, as well as continuing to scale our successful health and international businesses. We will build on the simpler world that we have created for customers. We will provide an exceptional experience with even greater personalization and consistency across our channels. We will offer the products and services they need to connect as individuals and businesses grow. We will take advantage of the many great strides made in our 5G rollout and boost capacity, speed, and population coverage of our mobile network.
We will expand our regional network by an extra 100,000 sq km, so we can continue to deliver leading mobile coverage and build and sustain our network leadership. We will continue to improve our reputation as a responsible business with further action on climate, digital inclusion, and building fairness and accessibility into all that we would do. Now, we were successful with T22 because we were bold. We set ourselves some big, ambitious goals and executed with discipline and transparency, and the same disciplined approach will be taken with T25. Turning now then to changes this year on Telstra's board. One long-serving board member, Nora Scheinkestel, reached the end of her fourth three-year term as director and has notified the board of her intention to retire at the conclusion of today's Scheme Meeting.
Nora has simply been an outstanding director, and I'm very, very sorry to see her retire. She is one of the very best directors that I've ever had the pleasure to work with. She has been part of the board at a time when Telstra has gone through some of its greatest challenges and transformations. This includes her chairmanship of the Audit and Risk Committee from 2012 to 2019, and her membership of the due diligence committees, which helped guide Telstra through the NBN transaction, as well as our current proposed corporate restructure. So on behalf of the board, I would like to express my sincerest thanks to Nora and offer her our very best wishes for the future. More broadly, Telstra has a strong and talented board, and we continue to bring on outstanding individuals to replace those that retire.
In that regard, we expect to announce two high-quality new directors in the next few months. Now, a number of investors have also asked me recently about my own future as Chair. So I've been on the board for 14 years, so it's only natural for there to be speculation on my tenure, especially as we now have Vicki in place as our new CEO. So well, my current term with the board ends in October next year, but I have two significant obligations still ahead of me. Firstly, I need to do everything I can to support Vicki in her new role. And secondly, I need to ensure that in addition to the capable directors already on the board, the board is strengthened by the addition of new directors, so that my colleagues have a strong lineup of candidates from which to choose when deciding on my successor.
If both of those tasks are completed by next year's AGM, then I will not be standing for re-election. If we're unable to complete all of this in the time, then provided my colleagues support the decision, I would stand for re-election, but with the intention of transitioning to a new chairman within the first 6-12 months of my next term. Now, of course, Telstra doesn't exist in a vacuum, and just as we have transformed over the past 4 years, so too has the world around us.... Technology innovation continues to accelerate. COVID has turbocharged the digitization of our society and further underscored the crucial importance of the connectivity that we provide. Geopolitics remains volatile and uncertain, and that has changed the threat landscape and increased the demands on our cyber defenses and strategic supply chains.
Now, Vicki will touch further on cybersecurity in a minute, but may I just say that it is easy for third parties to be critical of companies who have suffered devastating cyberattacks, such as happened recently to Optus. Let me be blunt, however, and say that it's very easy to be critical when it isn't you in the firing line, and we should all avoid hubris, because no one can afford to be complacent, and no organization can ever be 100% sure that it is completely protected and safe. The threat sophistication of the attackers grows every day, and to address the threat, business needs to put aside competitive rivalry and work constructively across industries, with government, and with the community to protect Australia from this modern scourge. Then at the same time, everyone's aware that inflation and cost-of-living pressures continue to increase.
This is also something we're incredibly mindful of. The changes we've made under T22 position us well in this regard. Most Consumer and Small Business customers now have incredible flexibility with us. Their mobile and internet service plans are no longer on a long-term contract. They can move between plans even once a month if their circumstances change. They can also take advantage of our multi-brand strategy and a range of propositions that give them real choice. Equally, we continue to work closely with customers who find themselves in difficult situations, and particularly working with people in vulnerable circumstances. In this regard, through various initiatives, we today help some 750,000 vulnerable customers to be able to maintain connectivity and participate in our modern digital world.
There's no easy or short-term fix, but we remain very sensitive to cost-of-living pressures, and the pressures that that creates for customers and employees. Lastly, another issue of some concern is the current critical shortage of skilled labor in the technology sector, an issue that clearly impacts on Telstra. The new federal government deserves real credit for its genuine efforts to address this and other critical issues in a considered, consultative, and collaborative way at this recent Jobs and Skills Summit. The debate on how to address skill shortages has some way to run yet, but most people agree on one important point: skilled migration is an important part of the solution, and the system that enables it must be made simpler, more efficient, and transparent.
Historically, migrants have supplied about a third of the increased skill requirements of the Australian economy, and given Australia's aging population, we should expect this trend to accelerate in the future. With the world rapidly digitizing, with many companies, including Telstra, requiring ever more technically skilled workers, this is an area we cannot afford to fall behind. For Australia to be competitive, we must invest in skills and training, particularly in growing industries like technology, but we also need ready and steady access to skilled labor from offshore as required. So let me conclude again by saying we have many achievements to be proud of this year. The many tangible benefits of T22 are now clear, and they underpin our commitment to return the business to underlying growth and position it for success in the future through T25. It's an exciting strategy to meet an exciting future.
Finally, before I invite Vicki to address you, let me sincerely thank you, our shareholders, for your support during the year. Let me also thank our millions of customers, because without them, there would be no Telstra. Finally, a really sincere thank you to every Telstra staff member. The board greatly appreciates all that you do, and I believe so, too, do our shareholders. Thank you very much for listening, and let me now introduce our new Chief Executive Officer, Vicki Brady, and invite her to address the meeting. Thank you.
Well, thank you, Chairman, and good morning, everybody. I am delighted to be here for the first time as your Chief Executive Officer, and I look forward to hearing your comments and answering any questions you have of me. This morning, I will cover two things. Firstly, I will comment on the financial and operating results from FY 2022, and an overview of our priorities and guidance for FY 2023. Secondly, I will provide some detail on the growth aspirations of our new T25 strategy. Before I do that, given it is my first time here as CEO, I wanted to briefly touch on what my immediate key focus areas are and some of the drivers behind them. FY 2022 was a particularly important year for Telstra.
As the chairman just took you through, we successfully closed out our T22 strategy, and the financial headwinds from the transition to the NBN are largely behind us. At the same time, the world is going through a period of upheaval, with changes in the geopolitical landscape, supply chain disruptions, and economic pressures, such as inflation, coming on top of the growing impacts of climate change. These things are driving different opportunities and challenges for all businesses, and to prosper in this environment, we will need to think differently and boldly. One thing I am sure of, and as COVID has demonstrated, connectivity and technology, Telstra's core products and expertise, will play a key role in helping our country and the world to respond to these challenges.
Put simply, what we do and deliver has never been more important, which brings me to my key priorities, which are strongly grounded in our T25 strategy and ambitions. Number one, we must continue to radically change the experience for our customers. We have made huge progress through T22, but delivering exceptional customer experiences, being known as a leader in customer excellence, isn't just the right thing to do. It is critical to us unlocking future opportunities, opportunities to fuel our growth. That growth is my second priority. Growth will come from customers trusting us to play a lead role in delivering the technology that can make a real difference for them and their organizations.
Connectivity is at the heart of so much of our lives, and Telstra is in an extraordinary position with the team that can bring together our market-leading networks, products, services, and solutions for consumers and enterprises. That demand for our products and services, with connectivity playing a foundational role in everything we do, means we are well-placed to grow into the future. The increased reliance on connectivity we provide means we need to be vigilant in protecting our networks and platforms. We are seeing increasing cyber threats, and the recent attack on one of our competitors puts into stark focus just how real these threats are. You may have also seen reports of a data breach at one of our third-party suppliers. I want to be clear that this was not a breach of any Telstra system and did not involve any customer data.
The hackers accessed the names and email addresses of some of our employees. We have taken important steps to protect our networks and customers, but ongoing vigilance is required, and the job is never done. We are also blocking unprecedented levels of malicious activity from reaching our customers, including calls and SMS, while at the same time helping our customers to protect themselves and their businesses. With a growing number of these cyber attacks, some of our customers are asking us what ID documents we keep, for how long, and for what reason. These are all fair questions, and people are right to be asking them. Like many companies, we are subject to multiple pieces of legislation and rules in relation to retaining our customers' ID data. We collect it and fiercely protect it through our cybersecurity capabilities.
But we agree the time is right for a discussion on the laws around keeping data. As we do, we have to get the balance right, and it's a fine balance between identifying our customers, protecting them against fraud, maintaining their privacy, and helping law enforcement combat crime. Given advances in technology and the broader work being done on trusted digital identity, I think that balance is achievable, and we really look forward to working with the government on it. I will now turn to the financial results. FY 2022 was a pivotal year for us. As well as successfully marking the end of our T22 program, we also saw the last financial effects of the rollout of the NBN, and the growing momentum in our underlying performance is showing through.
Those final financial NBN impacts saw reported total incomes decline of around AUD 700 million in one-off NBN receipts and AUD 300 million in NBN commercial works. Total income for the year therefore decreased 4.7% to AUD 22 billion on a reported basis, while NPAT decreased 4.6% to AUD 1.8 billion, and earnings per share were down 7.7% to AUD 0.144 per share on a reported basis. The declines reflect both the impact of the NBN and one-off gains from asset sales last year. In contrast, underlying EBITDA, on a guidance basis, increased 8.4% to AUD 7.3 billion, driven significantly by an outstanding performance in the year from our mobiles business. Underlying EBITDA included an in-year NBN headwind of AUD 340 million.
This is the last year of in-year NBN headwinds and brings the total cumulative impact of NBN on Telstra's EBITDA to AUD 3.6 billion per annum. Encouragingly, underlying EPS was up 48.5% to AUD 0.144 per share. As the chairman just highlighted, we are pleased to announce an increase in the total dividend for the first time in a number of years. I will now turn to the operating highlights for the year. As I said, mobiles performed very strongly, adding AUD 700 million in EBITDA growth. We added 155,000 net retail post-paid mobile services, including 121,000 branded... demonstrating the benefits of our clear leadership in 5G. Retail prepaid unique users were up 215,000.
In wholesale, we added 218,000 services, and we added over 1 million Internet of Things services. Our performance in Fixed for Consumer and Small Business has been more challenged. Net new retail bundles were -87,000, although bundle and standalone data ARPU increased by 2.4%. Notwithstanding the disappointing Fixed SIO performance, we are confident of restoring financial momentum by leveraging the many value-adding home broadband features Telstra offers. In Enterprise, and in line with our previously communicated aspiration, we returned to growth at both the income and EBITDA level. Fixed Enterprise EBITDA grew by 2.3%, with NAS EBITDA growing by AUD 152 million to offset weakness in our Data and Connectivity business. InfraCo Fixed income was AUD 2.4 billion, with core access revenues, including NBN recurring receipts, up 3.1%.
InfraCo Fixed growth will be further supported by our intercity fiber project announced in February. This will provide ultra-fast connectivity between capital cities and improved regional connectivity. Telstra Health had a strong year, both operationally and strategically, as it continues to scale. Telstra Health revenue for the year was up 13%, or 51% to AUD 243 million, after including the MedicalDirector and PowerHealth acquisitions. Finally, on our operating highlights, underlying fixed costs were down AUD 454 million, and total operating expenses were down AUD 906 million, or 5.8%. In summary, FY 2022 has seen our core business perform strongly. Our mobiles result was outstanding. Consumer and Small Business Fixed grew in the second half.
Enterprise returned to growth at the top line and bottom line, and we've started to realize the benefits of setting up our infrastructure assets as standalone InfraCo businesses. Turning now to FY 2023 guidance, which I am confirming today. The ranges and basis on which guidance is provided can be seen on the slide. Guidance across all measures includes our Digicel Pacific acquisition that completed in July. Our underlying EBITDA guidance is consistent with our previous FY 2023 ambition, plus a contribution from Digicel Pacific. Our CapEx guidance includes an uplift in mobile investment, around AUD 150 million for Digicel Pacific, and around AUD 350 million of strategic investment outside of business as usual for the intercity fiber and Viasat infrastructure projects.
Finally, on guidance, we expect to continue to achieve strong cash flow, enabling us to invest for growth and deliver returns to shareholders. FY 2023 free cash flow is expected to be around AUD 1.1 billion, lower at the midpoint of guidance than FY 2022. Increased EBITDA in FY 2023 contributes positively, but this is more than offset by increased CapEx, as well as working capital and other benefits in FY 2022 not repeating. With that, let me turn back to T25 and the future. T25 is built on four strategic pillars and aims to deliver, first, an exceptional customer experience you can count on. As I said at the start, nothing is more important than continuing to improve customer experience, and this sits at the heart of our T25 strategy, leveraging the capabilities we have built.
Second, leading network and technology solutions that deliver your future. Connectivity is central to how the world works, and our customers are demanding more from us than ever before. We are committed to continuing to provide them leading network and technology solutions. Third, sustained growth and value for you, our shareholders. Our financial ambitions are clear: we aim to grow our underlying business through to FY 2025, demonstrated by the key metrics of EBITDA, ROIC, and earnings per share. With cash flow generation and opportunities ahead to monetize assets, although we have made no decisions yet in this regard, we will focus on maximizing our fully franked dividend and seeking to grow it over time. And finally, the place you want to work. The last one is built on three key areas: excelling in new ways of working, accelerating our digital leadership, and doing business responsibly.
As the chairman said, we will take the same transparent and disciplined approach to T25 as we did to T22. That means we will continue to publish a scorecard that clearly shows our progress against our commitments and metrics. Today, you heard the chairman call out some of our early progress in this in his speech, including our Intercity Fibre build and our support of the Viasat satellite ground network.... In conclusion, FY22 clearly shows the financial momentum within our business, and we expect that momentum to continue through growth in our underlying business. While the current economic and global environment remain volatile, we are well-placed to manage through it, with earnings growth, strong cash generation, and a strong balance sheet. Demand for our products and services has never been stronger.
We have a clear strategy to grow our business, deliver industry-leading networks and technology, continue to improve our customer experience, and attract and retain the best talent. I echo the thanks of the chairman to you, our shareholders, and I am equally humbled and proud to be given the job of leading this iconic company. I would also like to thank the board for the faith they have put in me, and I want you to know, I feel the weight of that responsibility that comes with it. As we have laid out today, Telstra plays a critical role in providing the networks, connectivity, and technology that connects our nation. I am energized by that responsibility and confident we have the strategy and the team in place to fulfill it. Lastly, I want to take the time to thank the entire Telstra team.
I'm supported by a group of extraordinary, values-driven people working together to deliver an exceptional customer experience, to fully realize the value of our unequaled assets, and ultimately, to deliver better returns for you. Thank you. With that, I will now hand back to the chairman.
Great. Thanks a lot, Vicki. So we will now move to the formal part of the meeting, and the items of business are being shown on the screen. Nick outlined at the start of the meeting how you can ask a question and vote. Just a reminder, if you have any difficulty with the online platform or the phone system, please check our virtual meetings guide on our website or call the help number shown at the top of your screen. As I mentioned earlier, voting on items three to five is being conducted by poll. Ms. Emma Jones of Link Market Services Limited, Telstra's share registrar, is acting as Returning Officer in relation to the poll. We have received proxies from over 15,000 shareholders and direct votes from almost 14,000 shareholders.
We will display the proxy and direct votes recorded for and against an item on the screen when we get to that item. The four numbers include proxies received and available to be voted by the chairman of the meeting. So I now turn to item 2 on today's agenda, which is to discuss the company's financial statements and reports for the year ending 30th of June, 2022. So this item provides shareholders with the opportunity to ask questions about our 2022 financial statements and reports, as well as the business operations and management of Telstra. You can also ask questions of our auditor. If you have any specific questions about the scheme, could you please hold on to those, and ask them at the Scheme Meeting, which will be held later today after the AGM. So I'll now take questions from the floor.
Shareholders, I invite you to move to a microphone and ask any questions about our 2022 results or any general question you have about our company. For those of you not here in person, please submit your questions through the online portal, or raise your hand on the phone line if you haven't already done so. We have, I think, 4 microphones here. So please, any questions for us? We have a question from number 4.
Chairman, I'd like to introduce Mr. Bernard Power.
A general question, Mr. Chairman. You mentioned earlier that you were having difficulty recruiting the best technical talent. But I do notice on the CVs of both the board and the senior management, those are people mainly from a financial or commercial background. Do you not feel perhaps that Telstra should have a bigger technical representation in this forum? Thank you.
Well, thank you for the question. I think, the days of having a technical director on the board, are over. Every director on the board needs to have an understanding of technology. They don't have to be a deep specialist, but you need to have a good understanding of technology and how it impacts our world. And I believe we really do have that. And in particular, we have three directors who've had the highest levels of experience as CEO or boardroom level of major telcos, larger than Telstra. So I think we've actually got an excellent level of technological capability on the board. But thank you for the question. Number three.
Chairman, I'd like to introduce Penelope Fisher.
My name is Penelope Fisher. I'm a shareholder in Telstra from the original float, and I'm also a Telstra customer. I cannot tell you how extraordinarily disappointed I am in the performance of Telstra to me as a customer.
I have actually had nothing but problems since I converted to the NBN in January of 2022. I have taken this up both with Telstra, as case managers have been appointed to me and regularly rotated and changed, to the degree do I just feel like pass the parcel. I've taken it to my local member for Wentworth, Bill Sha-- Dave Sharma, who's now no longer my local member, and I've also taken it to the TIO over and over and over again. Due to a car accident, I'm a Priority Assist customer, and yet I have had an ongoing fault issue with both my home line and my internet, which is not covered by Priority Assist, but home line is, since March of this year.
I had somebody who was appointed to me, Mr. Charlie Wilson, as my case manager, who has now left Telstra, and somebody called Jade Smith has taken over. She has not contacted me by phone in the past two months. She says she has, but she hasn't gotten through to me. She's never written a letter to me to tell me how to contact her. She's constantly sent me only two emails, and when I've actually said to her, "Why have the agreement or the offer as a contractual offer that was made by Charlie Wilson not been honored by Telstra once I've agreed to them?" She has not been able to get back to me and tell me why. I cannot tell you how aggrieved I am, not just for myself, but for those other people who are in vulnerable positions for whatever reason.
Mine is due to a car accident, bilateral hip replacement, damage to my spine. Lucky to walk away. But there are other people older than me who don't have the linguistic skills or education I do, who are actually in a position that Telstra has placed them in by not honoring their word and not fixing the problem. If the NBN is not delivering, I can't sue them. I have a third-party relationship with them, but Telstra can. The NBN network is not working all over Australia. There's problems with the NBN network that many, many people recognize. Apparently, the ACCC have complained to the government about the current legislation, especially for Priority Assist, and also the current ombudsman for the TIO have also complained that the legislation needs changing.
But it's not just the legislation that needs changing, it's Telstra's working relationship with the NBN that needs changing, because the NBN network has regular outages, both planned and unplanned, which leave people without any way of connecting. I have not had mobile signals in or in the area around my home since 2012. So if I lose my home line and my internet, but it's not covered by Priority Assist, only the home line, I have no way of getting the assistance I might need. I think this is extremely poor performance as a company, and I would like to know what kind of measures you're going to be taking to address it. And I agree with the person who asked the question before. I'm surprised that there's not more technical expertise on the board, but more financially heavy expertise on the board.
Of course, the company must survive as a company, but it has to have something to sell that is a technical and sophisticated product to its customers. So I'd like to know what you intend to do about fixing the NBN network problem, as well as how you intend to assist customers who are Priority Assist customers. I can't work from home, I can't start a business from home, and I can't study from home because of these issues. Thank you.
Well, firstly, nobody likes hearing the difficulties that you've experienced, and, you know, I unreservedly apologize on behalf of the company for the troubles you've experienced. Now, there was a lot in your question. Let me try and go through some of the bits. Firstly, you'll forgive me in your particular circumstances. Obviously, I don't have the knowledge at my fingertips, but we have people here who will be able to help you, and let's make sure before you leave today, we'll sit down with an appropriate person from Vicki's team, and we will get your issues resolved. So that's point one. Point two, I think, yes, you're right. There have been quite a few difficulties experienced by the whole industry with the transition to the NBN. That's no secret. However, we have a very good working relationship with the NBN.
After some, perhaps some difficult times at the beginning, as everyone was finding their feet, the rollout is pretty well complete now. And I can assure you, NBN is trying really hard to fix those issues in conjunction with us. Sometimes it's a Telstra problem, sometimes it's an NBN problem, but we do work constructively together to try to address those. I know it's of a small comfort to you with the experiences you've had, but actually, the transformation of Telstra's customer experience has been absolutely radical. A long, long way to go, and when you've got millions and millions of customers, there will always be someone who has a bad experience from time to time.
But I think you heard some of the statistics that we mentioned earlier, that the number of calls coming in have reduced by 70%. We've brought 166 of the stores in-house, where they can be directly managed by Telstra management. We brought 100% of the consumer small business service calls that were handled overseas, brought them back on. Our Net Promoter Score has climbed dramatically up to, I think, +37 at the end of Q2 2022. We've done other things as well, like, I think, with the free calls from phone boxes. I believe some 17 million customers have done some 17 million free calls. We're extending that to, to fixed line opportunities as well, that where we've helped some 750,000 vulnerable customers.
So while, yes, I don't in any way downplay the difficulties you've had, believe me, that the transformation of Telstra service performance has been dramatic. And T25, probably the single biggest component, and Vicki and I have discussed this at length, single biggest focus is to take that service performance up another level. Now, there'll always be somebody who has, has an experience from time to time. That's life. But we really want to get it to the point where Telstra is recognized as a, a seamless, digital, and first-class customer service organization. We've still got a way to go, but we've made a lot of progress. And I would just circle back. Please don't leave today until you've sat with one of us. I'm happy to talk to you, with Vicki, and some of our team, and we will address your issue and get it resolved. Thank you.
Number three.
Chairman, I'd just like to introduce Margaret Marchetto.
I'm not used to doing this, but I would like to speak to somebody on the board. I have had problems with my legs from here down. I have to walk every day, but I've had problems with my legs in the last few weeks through the stress of not resolving the Telstra NBN problems. Everyone has been extremely nice to me, except for somebody about two or three weeks ago, who, when I went into the Telstra place at Chatswood, at Westfield, where they happen to know me because I've been in there so many times. With all these scams, I know people who have been scammed, and I didn't know sometimes, still don't know, always, if it's Telstra ringing me.
So I make a journey into Westfield, and I was on the phone for an hour and not understanding the technology that the girl was using, and I never will understand it, and especially when my head is all fuzz. Now, I think it's since, and I lost the use of... I didn't, I don't know if I was going to faint or whatever, but since then, I've had this, I've had the stress. My brother died on the 21st of July. I've lost 3 other friends since then, going back for years. But I think it's about 2 weeks into July, that I first had a problem with the screeching so badly on the phone, and a friend in hospital leaving the longest message she's ever left, and I could not understand any word in that message on the answering machine.
Because of the phone, I have been told, has dropped out as many as 50 times, even when I'm not even talking on the phone. It's still dropping out 50 times, twenty times, thirty, 17. I do believe that it was fixed last week by one fellow, Con, C-O-N, Con, Greek background, lovely fellow, who started supervising the other technicians that came out. And a new line should have been put in when we had problems with Telstra before, in where I live, in that area. We had problems with Telstra for years. The technicians had come out. There'd be water in the little black boxes in the pits, con, what do you call it? Condensation. My mind is not even working properly. I have made a very bad investment.
I went into the bank to invest in a term deposit so much, and it was suggested double the amount because I had too much saving. I had intended that money to go somewhere else. Now, I, I can't think clearly. That's how stressed I have been. I have missed out on meals. I... My weight went down to under 7 stone. I should be 8 stone, 2 or 4. Now, it's not funny to have, yeah, and about 2 or 3 weeks ago, my head, I can't explain it, felt it so if I didn't just pull back and just... And I have been nice to everybody. I ended up, in the last 2 or 3 weeks, telling the people that I'm frustrated. That's the, the strongest word I've used. Yesterday, the Priority Assist fellow, I've, I've had Priority Assist for, for a long time.
I walk very quickly. My movements are very quick, and everybody thinks I'm very fit. I'm not, but I do what I'm told to do by the physio every day, and I go for a walk every day, and that keeps me going. I'm sorry to take up so much time, but I'm not as articulate as that lady. And, Vicki, you are very articulate. Thank you for explaining things so clearly this morning. I would like to speak to somebody, but Con, who took responsibility, the line has gone from that box, up to that box, to there, up to there, and up to my garage. Now it's going down to it goes down through the between the two brick walls, and the line by NBN has been completed, but the phone is still not right.
And the fellow yesterday said, "Just stay calm." Well, it's very hard, and I didn't raise my voice, but I didn't even think that was the right word. I think that Telstra could. And, as I said, everyone's been extremely polite in what they say. They think that it's fixed, but if it's not, the line needs to be replaced. Well, now, that was done last Saturday, and it was done very, you know, very quickly and efficiently, I believe. And this Con had a wonderful way of keeping me calm, keeping me confident. That's lacking when nobody takes responsibility for anything. And when the technician is leaving, he says, "I think the line has been fixed, but if it's not, you need to replace the complete line." Well, this is costing Telstra.
For that lady, for me, we're not the only ones. I have so many friends who have a connection in their house, but they don't use it. They're obviously paying the bill, and which may be something, but they don't use their phone. And the other thing, yeah, they gave up trying to get in once they switched over to NBN. They just gave up. But the mobile in my area, that also doesn't work very efficiently in my house, and I took it out onto the street. I don't normally use the mobile. I'm not good with the technology. Went out there, it cut out five times. I thought it was me, but no, apparently, selling off these towers is not a good idea because you're not allowed, Telstra are not allowed onto the properties.
One tower has been out of operation for 9 months, and one has been... This was mentioned to me about 3, 4 weeks ago, 9 months, and another one has been out of operation since that, that's at some stage for 2 months, the mobile in my area. So, why-- And it's something to do with, with, oh, what do you call it? Oh, see, I can't think at all. But please, I realize the whole of the country, there are problems in every area because we've all grow... It's all grown too, too quickly. Everything's grown too quickly, and we keep bringing new people into the country. Let's try and resolve what we can in the country with, you know, the health is disgraceful.
But you're, you're a communications company, so you need to be able to communicate with people and not let us get as uptight as we are. You know, it's, it's part of my personality, too, so I can't, I can't blame, you know... And overall, I've been very happy with Telstra, but not since I, I changed to NBN. Thank you.
Okay, thank you very much. And again, I can only apologize for all the troubles you've had with the NBN connection. Again, you'll forgive me, I'm obviously not aware, and nobody here will be aware of your specific circumstances, but I can give you a full commitment that, again, before you leave today, speak with one of our customer service representatives, or if you can't get satisfaction there, speak to Vicki or myself, and we will address your issue for you.
Yeah. Thank you. But unfortunately, everybody is passed on to the next person, to the next person. I don't know how many people have come into my home, and because I'm a Priority Assist person, I've had to stay at home, so I need to get out. I live alone. I need to have company. I've had to put off some... I can't even go to the hairdresser. I can't make a hair appointment. But I can't make medical appointments. I haven't been able to make since, well, it was due in about July. I haven't been able to do that. I haven't... I've canceled other important appointments. My friends are not ringing me.
They're sick and tired of hearing the stories because it's on my mind. It's either that or grief at the moment, and there's not much of the grief coming through because it's all Telstra or NBN. I can't even stay in bed till 8:00 A.M., which I never, ever do. I'm an early morning person. I like to walk early, but I can't even because I feel my body needs it so much to have a morning in bed. Can't do that for fear of what the technicians come before or after the time. You may have an appointment there, they'll come there, and they say: "Because you're priority, we come early, you know, if we're, if we can." So look, I appreciate all of that, but what it's doing to me, it's you know, I can't go on.
I so badly need a holiday. You know, as so many other people.
Absolutely. So look, we, we hear you loud and clear. I obviously don't know whether it's a Telstra issue, it's an NBN issue, but whatever the issue is, we will get somebody onto it straight away and, and seek to resolve it for you as quickly as possible. Thank you. Number one.
Chairman, I'd like to introduce Judy Stevens.
Hello, Chairman. I have something positive to say. I'm a senior. I live in the CBD, and I've got a prepaid plan that's fantastic. I really appreciated you giving free phones from public phones, free, free calls. I hope this will continue because our vulnerable people or medical emergencies, when a mobile mightn't be about, would really work. You have a George Street store. I've been going in there to see John for more than a decade. They're very, very good in there, and I just want to thank Telstra for looking after us.
Well, well, thank you. It's understandable when people have difficulties that they would raise it with us, but not everybody takes the trouble to thank us when things go well. So really appreciate those comments. Thank you.
Chairman, I'd like to introduce Antoinette Grant.
Thank you very much. I sympathize with speakers one and two. Even so, I think, if people get too long, they have to be cut off. But I had similar problems, and I don't wanna talk about those because I'm in the middle of resolving it, but I have had similar problems. The thing is, I've been a Telstra customer for about 40-odd-plus years, and I intend staying with Telstra because the money is staying in Australia. That is my very, very strong belief. I just thought, I might offer some opinions on how to resolve one or two problems. One is when you talk to the sales line or any other line, you constantly get somebody different, and so, you're starting again after waiting, obviously, for some considerable time.
You get somebody who needs the explanation from beginning to end, and you get absolutely sick and tired of it. And everybody has been very nice, exactly as this lady said. Everybody is very trying to be helpful, but not usually able to be helpful and not being able to, to follow up. The other thing is, somebody told me the other day, if you have problems with your phone cutting out, that you... Because I have a phone and an answer machine that has worked perfectly for more than 30 years. If you let the phone ring too long, it cuts out the phone. So if you cut down the time that your phone rings before you answer it, that might solve the...
That apparently seems to solve the issue for some people, and it might be worthwhile just checking up on that. Thank you.
Right. Well, thank you very much for firstly the kind words at the beginning. Look, you know, we absolutely understand how critical connectivity is to everybody, but also to older or more vulnerable customers. And one of the main reasons that the company moved to the free calls from phone boxes was exactly that. In case of emergency, health, or whatever, you know there's somewhere you can go, you can make a call, even if you've lost your mobile, or you haven't got access or whatever. So I think that's hopefully a really positive step forward.
On the other issue you raise, one of the reasons that we put such a lot of effort into getting digital interaction with customers is to reduce the risk of being passed from one person to another. You have one line of communication. But of course, we understand that digital interaction is not for everybody, and that's one of the reasons, again, why we brought the customer service people back on shore so that you're now speaking to somebody here in Australia, because we think that, again, materially improves the experience that you will get. So thank you for the suggestions. You're absolutely on the money. Those are things we're working hard on, and we will continue to redouble our efforts accordingly.
Chairman, I'd like to introduce Piers Parbery.
Good morning. I just... Parbery is actually the name. But, the... In order to address the skills shortage that you mentioned in your speech, I just wondered what the practice and attitude to in-house training is... It, corporations used to have a very different attitude. There was a lot of in-house training, and I know that has changed in, well, not just in recent decades. One of the reasons I've heard is that people will take the skills and move to another company, and so, the company that's trained them doesn't benefit. That's not necessarily the case if those people are looked after and promoted and valued. I'm reminded of meeting somebody a number of years ago, in London, who was a graduate trainee with IBM.
Remember them? That was before even Microsoft existed, this particular meeting. And I was astonished to hear that, the number of courses she was going to be on in the first two years, I think it was approximately 40% of her time, which is just phenomenal. They had the attitude that they, you know, train people their way, and the people stay with them, and they promote them, and many people stayed for many, many years. Anyway, I just, the question really is, what sort of in-house training does Telstra have? Thank you.
Thank you. Thanks very much, for the question. Look, I think I can actually give you some good news there. I think, Telstra's in-house, training capabilities and human resource capabilities are, are absolutely first class. In the time that I've been there, I've been, nothing but astounded, by it. So, we have actually, in the last 2-3 years, completely transformed the way employees work in Telstra. I think we have some 17,000 people today working in agile teams, which is a complete change from the old siloed sort of mentality that existed in, in older, corporations. We have extensive training programs.
As we've remember, with the migration of our fixed business to the NBN, we had a lot of jobs that were now surplus, and many of those people have been retrained into new roles elsewhere in Telstra. We've hired some 2,000 new very technically capable people as part of that transition. And we also for retention of and attraction and retention, I think we have some of the more generous terms and conditions of employment in Australia. We pay at the top end of pay scales. We have quite a lot of benefits, of 16 weeks of parental leave, I think, 15 days of additional personal leave. A whole lot of other benefits that not every company offers, which hopefully makes Telstra an attractive place to work.
So my comments were, I think it's a problem for the whole country, the attraction of technical skills, but I think we're probably doing better than many in being able to attract and retain really, really capable talent. Thank you.
Chairman, I'd like to introduce Patricia Fay.
Thank you.
Can you hold her the microphone?
Little bit lower. Thank you. I'm not going to make a complaint. I'm going to tell you how wonderful it is that you brought your call center back to Australia. Being over eighty and going downhill, it's wonderful to speak to someone who speaks my language. And, and I do think that you should put a time limit on how long people are allowed to speak, because it almost makes you shut your eyes when it goes on for too long. Thank you.
Oh, thank you. And if I may be so bold to say, you definitely don't look like you're going downhill. You're pretty good for your, pretty good for your age. I hope I'm half as good. As for terminating questions, look, I think it's important that we listen to what people have to say. That's what we're here for. It's the one opportunity that individual shareholders get to really engage with the board and with senior management, and we take that responsibility very seriously. Obviously, the people who do maybe speak for longer, they're not doing it to annoy anyone. They're doing it because they're really emotionally connected to the issue, and it's important to them.
So I hear and understand what you say, but I think I'd rather let people have their say, and we do our very best to try to resolve it, rather than cutting people off in mid-flow. Thank you for your comments.
I apologize to you.
Chairman.
Yes?
I would like to introduce Peter Starr.
Good morning, John, and good morning, fellow shareholders. John, I'd like to thank you very much for extending the courtesy on the seventeenth of August to myself to attend Andy's farewell in Sydney. It's a tradition that was held by your predecessor, Catherine Livingstone and David Thodey. I've been around since Sol Trujillo was CEO, and welcome, Vicki. Bit of a baptism of fire this morning, but anyway. Sincerely, John, it's good to see you have the tie on today. You didn't have it on the I had the suit on, but good.
... John, on a serious note, I think it's important that you're thinking about maybe going in 12 months on behalf of the shareholders I represent. I think it's important leadership to stay, John. If you need to stay, we'd support that. Welcome to you, Vicki, on behalf of the shareholders. Big shoes to fill for your two predecessors. And John, if I may, Nora, I was with David Thodey on Sunday when he flew out to Europe, and he asked me to mention that he's really appreciated all the time and things you've given to the board, and he wished you the best of luck, Vicki. I'd. The question I have for you, John, is that we've seen what's happened with Optus, and of course, a lot of people are worried.
I've had some clients that have been caught up in that, unfortunately, not many. But, for the, the reassurance that you may be able to give, and even Vicki, about people's data being protected, I know that I raised with the current minister that they're gonna look at why telcos have to hold specific information for such a long period, and this is what happened in Optus, and that information was hacked and passports, driver's license, and Medicare cards. It's an absolute nightmare. So maybe you'd like to just touch on that. Thank you.
Sure. Thank you. Thank you, very much, as always. An AGM wouldn't be the same without you here, so good to see you. Thank you. So there were a few questions in there. Firstly, yeah, a couple of us had to, search in the bottom of closets to find ties, particularly one or two of our overseas directors. But we all found one, so, I'm glad you appreciate that. You, you commented briefly on, my tenure. Look, you know, I would- I'd love to stay Chairman of Telstra for another decade. I love the company passionately. I find it thoroughly enjoyable and interesting, but I also believe strongly that there's a cycle.
There's a time in organizations, for both senior management and for board members, where it's time to give someone else the keys and take the company on to the next level. So I'm not about to rush off tomorrow. I'm gonna make sure there's a smooth transition, but I think that sadly, that time has come where I need to do what I think is the best thing for the company. Then more seriously or more importantly, I talked about the Optus situation, and on our side, but I think like Vicki said, and I said, we can never give 100% guarantees. It's just not possible. But firstly, as Vicki said, the Pegasus, the breach that happened to us, as Vicki said, was not actually Telstra.
It was a third-party provider with some data that we could pretty well get from anywhere. I mean, I was on the list, so was Vicki. It was just name and email address. That was all it was. It definitely wasn't a breach of Telstra's systems at all, and we are extremely vigilant in trying to ensure that we don't have any such breach. But, you know, we were talking about it yesterday, and a little anecdote. And last weekend, I was trying to do some work in the garden. I managed to hit a pipe to my wife's chagrin. There was water everywhere. I had to get a emergency plumber in. So firstly, on the telephone, they took my credit card details.
Then, when the plumber finally came out and I had to pay for the fix, he asked for, to see some ID, so I gave him my driving license. So I thought afterwards, it was all fixed, it was fine. But I thought afterwards, that company, I don't even know who they are, because they were an emergency plumber. They have my name, my address, they have my mobile phone number, they have my credit card number, and they have my driving license number. So that, data's gone into the ether. I don't know where it went. Have they deleted it? Have they sold it to someone? Have they kept it on file? Unfortunately, every one of us are exposed to that every day. And so the ability for us to say unequivocally, "You will never have an issue," we just can't do that.
But what I am extremely confident of is that Telstra's got the highest levels of security and protection that I've seen in industry in Australia. I think it's full credit to the team, Nikos and others here, who have put us in a really good position. Not 100%, but I think better than most, and I would be bitterly disappointed if the same thing happened to us as happened to some other organizations. I hope we can give you some comfort of the level of capability that the company possesses. Thank you. Actually, sorry, you made... I just made a note. You said one other thing about the laws requiring organizations to retain information.
That is a really good point, and there are a whole multitude of regulations and laws that require us to keep data in certain ways for certain periods of time, et cetera. That's an issue right across the industry, and I think the government is right on to that. We are very much involved in discussions with them, trying to minimize that. You'll understand the push-pull. On the one side, we're required to keep information for fraud purposes, for, you know, law and order, all that side of things. We need to be able to help authorities by law. But equally, does that need to be kept forever? No, it doesn't.
So I think the government is gonna hopefully come up with a streamlined set of rules that everybody can adhere to, everyone knows how long your data is kept for and why. Sorry, I forgot that bit. Another question on three? Yeah.
Caller number , I need to introduce you. Chairman, I would like to introduce Varma Nalinpalli.
Nadimpalli.
Na- Nadimpalli.
Yeah, yeah, that's okay.
Thank you.
Thank you. Yeah, thanks for this opportunity. This is the first time I'm attending this, shareholders meeting, even though I've been the shareholder since the beginning of the Telstra has been there. I've been silent shareholder until now, so now I'm looking at actually looking at the share, my shareholdings. What I can see here is like Telstra has been growing, their total income has been gone from AUD 29 billion to AUD 22 billion in 5 years, and the profit has been halved from AUD 3.6 billion to AUD 1.8 billion in 5 years. So what kind of things can we expect in 5 years from now to Telstra?
'Cause I can see like Vicki has given the next year, it's going to be something like AUD 23 billion revenue, but I don't know what will the net profit out of that, and then what would be the outlook for the next five years. Can we expect any growth, not the negative growth we have seen in the last five years?
Yes. Thank you very much. It's a really good and important question. So lots of competing issues, but by far, the biggest issue that reduced Telstra's profitability was the effective nationalization of half of our business by the government to create the NBN. The NBN, I think, recently declared a AUD 4.4 billion EBITDA profit. All of that has come out of the industry, and Telstra, obviously, being the largest player, suffered the worst. We lost over three and a half billion dollars of our net profit with the creation of the NBN. That's the single biggest reason.
One of the challenges that Telstra had was, unlike in some other countries where it was sort of done overnight and shareholders knew from one day to the next, in New Zealand and some other areas, what the new company would look like after it had been cut in half. In Australia, it was eked out over a number of years. So, every year, when management started the year, they had a headwind of hundreds of millions of AUD of profitability that was gonna be transferred to, to the NBN. The good news is, I think, both Vicki and I said, that is over. This, we have now returned to growth, with all of that NBN impact finally behind us. And, now our outlook that we've, we published for the year, is for our earnings and revenue to grow this year.
So, we're very confident. One of the reasons why the board is willing to increase the dividend was that we are very confident of that trajectory. We're very confident of the capabilities of management now to take Telstra to a whole new era where we go back to growth again. I hope that helps.
Chairman, I'd like to introduce Hans de Wit .
Good morning, everybody. Congratulate you to bring the shops under control, and also that we don't have to go overseas to make a phone call, because you couldn't hardly understand those people, most of them. So, that is two big pluses. Also, I think there should be a little bit more promotion made, whereby there are lots of people having shares in your company, but they don't have a telephone in Telstra. So why couldn't we promote more people who directly or indirectly benefit from the share, from the dividends, whereby they are still with the opposition? And also, that way, the profits stays in Australia, whereby the profit of the other companies most likely go overseas and maybe partly even in a tax haven. So we should have more promotions to keep the...
That all the shareholders or most of them are, you know, trying to promote that indirectly or directly they benefit to be a shareholder customer, and that way, we're getting, yeah, a lot of people more into the system by Telstra, at Telstra. Thank you very much.
Great. Thank you. Well, obviously, I can't comment on the structure of our, of our competitors, but Telstra is 100% an Australian company. I think well over 90% of our shareholders are Australian. So, well over 90% are Australian, and obviously, all of the, the profits that we make are retained in Australia, and they're distributed to, Australian, by and large, Australian shareholders. We obviously do have, a portion of our, investors, particularly our institutional investors, who are overseas, but retail investors are almost exclusively here, in Australia. So thank you. Yeah, we, we agree, and we're doing our best to make sure all of those other companies' customers end up, coming to us, both as shareholders and customers. I have one, number four.
Chairman, I'd like to introduce Brian Upton.
Just a very short question I have. When I've been reading a lot of the correspondence lately, I've been coming across this word, agile. Now, to me, I mean, I'm in my kind of mid-eighties, and when I get on the tennis court, I find that I'm not quite as agile as I was as a teenager. So I imagine you have a slightly different version of this, unless you mean your agile teams are all scurrying around the office all the time? So could you perhaps give me a couple of examples of what you mean by agile?
I'll give it a go, and I'm sure you don't have to wait till your age to feel it. Agility was something in the past. I experience it every morning. Look, basically, I'm looking at Alex, who'll give me a withering stare if I get this wrong. But, basically, in legacy companies in the past, and Telstra is no different, you had lots of silos of activity, both regional or functional, and they really didn't talk to each other that much. So if you're starting a new project, you had to get somebody from-
What do you mean by silo?
Sorry?
Different. The word silo has a different, you know, connotation to me, from the country.
Groups of people in functions. So the IT department would be sitting over here in isolation. The pricing department would be sitting here, and so on. And if you were launching a project, if Vicki's launching a project, she's got to try and find representatives from all these and try to get them to talk together. That is often quite inefficient. What Agile basically does is break down those structures and verticals and say: This is the issue. We're gonna have a combined team with multifunctional capabilities and different areas of it, and we're all gonna work on that at the same time. And we're gonna do it in short bursts of activity, where we set short-term goals. We collectively, have we achieved them all? Yeah, we've done nine out of ten.
Now we'll fix the tenth. Now we move to the next goal. Basically, it transforms the speed of decision-making. It means that the teams can make decisions and judgments without having to go back to their bosses in other departments and all these things that slows it all down. That's basically what's happened, and I think it's an extraordinary story. Telstra has moved some 17,000 people from the old way of working to Agile, and it's actually held up as a bit of a poster child, I think, of Australian industry, how that's done.
But, yes, that sounds great to me, but, I'm just wondering, I mean, communication is your thing. How come it's been in silos for so long? You know, why didn't you have this kind of worked out 30 years ago? It's, it's a matter of simple communication. You talk to people.
Well, that's, that's a very, very good question, but I think the whole... It's not like Telstra was the only one. That's the way we all did business. When I, when I grew up in business, no one thought to question it. It's only better minds now have said, "Well, actually, there are other ways of doing, doing these things." But from-
I have better minds. I'm pretty ancient, but anyway, go on. Thank you for that answer.
Oh, I hope, I hope it was helpful. Is that right, Alex? Yeah. Thank God. Yeah. Okay.
Number two.
Chairman, I'd like to introduce Chris Maxworthy.
Good morning, John, Board. In the interest of being a more agile company, and with a great history behind it, I wonder what the strategic direction is for Telstra in regard to the other, sort of, fifth-generation mobiles. We're talking about 80% coverage of the nation, and for the standard mobility, we're talking about 90-something. Okay, so the question I have for you, and I'm an engineer by training, is there are large numbers of entities, shire councils, startup businesses, that have basically found a fill-in niche competing against Telstra for those areas that Telstra finds it not profitable or worthy of pursuing in terms of this great big nation of ours. So my question to you is... Well, I'll give you an assessment.
My assessment is that Telstra provides a very robust, very efficient solution technically, but the challenge is that for large areas of Australia, it's not worth pursuing. It's not worth pursuing because it's costly and the hurdles for profitability can't be met, and so therefore, we choose to go, "Oh, well, those remote areas, we won't service, or we'll continue using the legacy system that in some cases was put in two to three decades ago." So my challenge to you, the board, is to look at ways to extend the reach, even if it's not profitable, but it does build the concept of Telstra as a nation-serving, emergency service-backing organization. And I'd say, in some ways, that build it, and they will come. Okay? That's it. Thank you.
Great. Well, thank you. Another good question. Look, I'd like to think that we are actually doing that. So Telstra does have, by far, the most extensive network. I think we have 1 million square kilometers more coverage than the next competitor, approximately. We've invested AUD 4.5 billion in regional mobile, and about AUD 1.5 billion in fixed in the regions over the last 5, 6, 7 years. The government's Black Spot Programs, which is focused very much on areas where they're not economic, we have been overwhelmingly the biggest contributor to that program. I think over 900 sites or something that Telstra has subscribed for. Much greater than all the other competition added together, and we're continuing to do that.
I think in T25, we've committed to another 100,000 square kilometers of coverage. I'm absolutely confident that we will maintain network leadership, network supremacy across the nation. What is gonna be interesting is that I think network priority is gonna be defined differently as we go forward as well. The geographic coverage, obviously, but also as we move into a 5G world, at density of networks in cities, ensuring there are no dead spots once you start moving into driverless cars and all these sort of autonomous things, you obviously can't afford to have the signal go down at the traffic light, so it's got to be completely ubiquitous across town. So I think it's not just going to be square kilometers.
I'm confident we will retain our leading position there by a long way, but we will also be doubling down on the depth and scale of 5G networks to ensure that it's not just coverage, but it's also accessibility everywhere. I mean, I just recently moved house, and I'm delighted to tell Vicki, and I actually got 1 gig download speed on my mobile, which is first time I've seen that outside the laboratory. I think Nick organized it especially for the day. But no, it's fantastic. That is a quantum leap forward in speed and capability that the whole industry didn't possess only a year or two ago. Well, Nick, it looks like we've maybe concluded all the questions from the floor.
Yep, in which case, would you be so kind as to move to our online, and then I think phone after that, yeah?
Yep, that's right. Thanks, John. We do have several questions online. The first one's from Michael Bordenaro. Hopefully, Michael, I've got your name, pronounced correctly. Telstra has had five years of declining sales and profits. You have reduced costs and overheads with your T22 strategy. When are shareholders going to see a turnaround with increased sales and higher net profits? The NBN can no longer be used as an excuse for falling profits.
Excuse me. Well, hopefully, I've addressed that in an earlier question. You're absolutely right. The NBN over the last five years is now behind us, so it's not an excuse. It was never an excuse. It was just reality of what was taking place. But as that is now, as you've observed, behind us, so the company is moving back into growth, and I think I've covered that both in terms of revenues and also profitability.
Great. Thanks, John. Next question is from James Brown: Why is Telstra continuously pursuing NBN Co to install underground infrastructure over neighboring properties, enforcing their right of entry when underground copper cable is obsolete, and given 5G network is forthcoming to this area, there is no valid reason to install underground infrastructure unless it was fiber optics to the premise, which is not the case. NBN Co has an obligation to follow TIO guidelines, and this is questionable.
So I'm not 100% sure of what's behind the question. But look, we have no control, obviously, over what NBN does with its fiber. There are rules that govern our interaction with NBN and the provision of services to the home, where that is now exclusively NBN over the industry. In business enterprise areas, it's a slightly grayer area, and yes, the NBN does lay fiber sometimes where we have fiber, and that's something we continue to have to work through as the thing rolls out, as industry rolls out. But again, look, we're not always best friends with NBN, but I think we have a good working relationship.
It's important to the whole country and to us that NBN is successful, so we do our very best to work with them to achieve that outcome.
Thanks, John. Next question is from Stephen Mayne. Stephen asks: The Digicel acquisition was very unusual, with taxpayers granting us billions in what effectively was a national security move as China attempts to increase its influence in the Pacific. In light of this, apparent role for Telstra in Canberra's national security strategies, what is our position in relation to making political donations, and how do we go about lobbying ministers and regulators? Who specifically negotiated the Digicel deal with both the current and former government?
Okay, there were a few questions in there. The easy one to answer is we do not make political contributions. We do occasionally attend dinners, where you pay to attend that dinner or, or an event, a speaking event or whatever, but we do not make any political donations. Digicel was indeed a unique opportunity. It was negotiated by Andy and the team at the time with the board's full support, and I can assure you that they were not easy negotiations. They went on for quite some time because, well, obviously, if your government asks you to help, it's, you know, beholden on you to do so, but we were not going to do so at the expense of Telstra shareholders.
So we had a lot of discussions to make sure that, yes, we gave every possible assistance to the government of the day, but at the same time, we would only do it if it was a good deal for Telstra and Telstra shareholders, and I'm very confident that that's where we landed, and it will be very good for Telstra shareholders going forward.
Thanks, John. Next question is from Gavin Smith: Why do Telstra shareholders and our customers have to bring their Telstra problems to a shareholder meeting to get their issues resolved? Why cannot our employees and company take ownership to solve customer issues much quicker and to be more thorough?
Okay, well, again, hopefully, I've, I've, I've covered that. You don't have to come to the Annual General Meeting to get your issues resolved. We all of our doors are open. My door is open. Vicki's is open. If you, for some reason, can't get resolution from the representatives of the company with whom you normally interact. But if you do bring it here, obviously, we will listen, and we'll do our very best to resolve it before you leave.
Great. Thanks, John. Next question from Paul Wiebusch: Inflation is currently 6.2%. Can you please advise, number one, what impact this is expected to have on Telstra's revenue, cost, and profit? Number two, whether the income performance measure noted in the Remuneration Report will be adjusted to focus on real growth rather than nominal growth?
... But it obviously has a big impact on all of us in this room. And it behooves us to manage our costs as effectively as we can, which I think the company has done extremely well. On the other side, we have had modest price increases below the level of inflation. So we try to always balance affordability, customer service, and returns to shareholders, and we need to try and balance all of those. And what was the last bit? Sorry,
Sorry, John, I have just gone past that question.
Should have written it down.
Technically, challenged on coming back to it.
Yeah.
Perhaps we'll just come back to that in just one moment.
So, did we get it?
Yeah, growth rates. We'll, we'll come back to that, John.
Okay.
Okay, thanks.
All right. Sorry, I should have written it down.
Apologies for that. Next question from Edward Leslie Manuel: What plan does Telstra have to compete with those recent communication supply businesses that operate with small overhead costs, given there are eleven on the dais working for Telstra customers, shareholders, and staff?
Well, I mean, look, Telstra is the ubiquitous legacy telecommunications provider that services most, if not all, of the needs of Australians. We don't seek to be a small niche provider. There are lots of other companies that I'm sure can do very well by taking a little piece of Telstra's world or the industry's world and just focusing on that, and I'm sure being very competitive. But we have a full range of services, full geographic coverage, and a different whole different promise and offering than those small niche operators. So, there's no point in comparing them. We're trying to achieve different things.
Yes, I'm gonna just go back to the second part of the question before. So it was whether the income performance measure noted in the Rem Report will be adjusted to focus on real growth rather than nominal growth.
Yeah. So every year, the board spends a lot of time, firstly, through the People and Human Resources Committee, on looking at the incentive targets for all of the executives for the following year. And we have to take into account a whole raft of things, not just inflation and nominal versus inflation linked, et cetera. I'm very comfortable that the committee is sufficiently diligent in looking at all the impacts. And remember, in the years gone by, we've actually had falling revenue, and we still have to incentivize management. I think you have to incentivize management more in bad times than you do in good times. You know, good times, tide lifting all boats, et cetera.
It's easy to convince yourself that you're doing a great job when there are a lot of external influences helping. In really tough times, like Telstra experienced when the NBN started to impact its profitability and our revenue fell and our profitability fell, that's when the real mettle of our management was challenged. So it's the board's job to absolutely incentivize managers to perform really well in that situation, as well as in good situations. So we don't just look at a nominal or inflation-linked figure and just base it on that. There's a lot more factors goes into the decision.
All right. Thanks, John. Next question from Gavin Smith: Did Telstra ever get paid for all the copper piping we owned and not just hand over for free?
Yeah, to my knowledge, we sell the spare copper that we don't use, which is. I can't remember off the top of my head how much it is, but it's quite a material sum. When copper is disconnected, we don't just leave it in the ground. It's taken out, and it's resold.
Great. Thanks, John. Next question from Margaret Mary Larkin: In my opinion, more staff need to be employed in busy Telstra offices, and also proper customer service training provided to staff, not just online. So many customers that I speak with detest entering a Telstra office, especially if older, due to a delay and poor quality of service, except for a few exceptions.
Well, I'm disappointed to hear that, that you, you've had those experiences. I think we've heard from several of the shareholders and customers in the room today that they've actually had very good experiences in the stores. And as Vicki and I think mentioned, you know, we have brought all 166 of those stores back in-house, and they are managed directly by Telstra now, rather than a third-party franchise, as was the case before, which I think is hopefully going to address most of those issues that you raise.
Next question is from Margaret McArthur: I do not agree with company's proposal towards net zero, as all of the countries who are manufacturing the wind turbines and solar panels are not complying to this and continue to pollute our planet. Net zero will drive Australia into further bankruptcy.
I'm not sure if that was a statement or a question, but obviously, we take our obligations and ethical obligations, as well as legal ones, very seriously. We have committed to carbon neutrality by 2020, which we achieved. We've committed to 100% renewable energy or to source 100% renewable energy equivalent to our use of energy by 2025, and to a 50% reduction in total emissions by 2030. And we just last year, I think, really upped the bar by including our Scope 3 emissions as well, which was some 70%, I think, odd of total emissions. So it's quite a significant change.
I'm very comfortable that we've got an ambitious but realizable target, doing our bit to help a global problem of climate change.
... Thanks, John. Next question from Chris Wood. Chris asks, "Customer of Telstra for 20-plus years and a shareholder. Recently misled repeatedly, re plan change. Repeated lack of response, many calls to call center, significant language barrier, and poor service. No willingness to remedy, and told to go to ombudsman. I've observed continued decline in customer service and frustrating interactions with overseas call centers and chat services. What is Telstra doing to increase and maintain customer service levels and services being returned to Australia?
Well, I think we've covered most of that. We're doing an awful lot in that area, and the results are showing. I won't go through all of them again. But like with other speakers, please contact us in the same way that you've contacted us for this question. Give us the name and address, and we will have somebody call you, or your phone number, and we will have somebody call you and address your specific issue as soon as we can.
Thanks, John. Next question from Giles Francis Baxter: "Is Telstra still attempting to gender balance its current workforce by using methods that actively discriminate against males to ensure more females get promoted? If so, how do you justify this practice, as discrimination in any form is wrong? I can only imagine how your loyal male workforce feels being overlooked in this disgraceful way.
Well, the simple answer is no, but, I won't stop there. That would be rude. No, I think we've done actually a really good job on diversity within Telstra. It's, it's never a never finished program, but, we're at some, 34% overall, I think, of female representation. On the board and executive level, it's over 40, and we have a whole number of programs running. On our, graduate program, I think we see 50% of our graduate intakes to be female, but not just gender. So indigenous, I think 5%, disability, 5% or 10%— 2% as well. So, we are very conscious of the need for diversity, and we don't discriminate against, we discriminate against anybody, neither men nor women.
Thanks, John. Next question from Teresa Caloiero. Hopefully, I've pronounced your name right, Teresa. "The Telstra dividend paid is greater than the profits made, EBITDA. With interest rates increasing, can Telstra continue to borrow money to pay the dividend? This has happened in the past, and Telstra has had to slash its dividend. Isn't it wiser to cut the dividend now, so it is lower than profits made?
No, firstly, I think by EBITDA, probably meant net profit. But, yes, the dividend was, I think it was 115% of net earnings this year. The reason we still decided to increase the dividend was because at the conclusion of the T22 program, we really now see the company returning to growth, and we think that we can justify the increase in the dividend. We know how important dividend is to shareholders. We can justify it because we think our growth is now going to continue. We would not be doing it if we felt that the company's earnings were going to be flat or falling in the future. So while that percentage is higher today, as earnings grow, that percentage will fall back.
And obviously, we do not intend to maintain it above 100% for the long term, but we're very comfortable that the trajectory is good.
Another question from Giles Francis Baxter: "At the AGM, I'm hearing so many issues about customer service. So what is Telstra going to do about these issues? These are our shareholders, so I can only imagine how our other customers are feeling, who don't have the same loyalty to the company. If we don't fix this, we will continue to lose our customers to other companies.
Well, again, I think that we've discussed that subject at length. I won't go through all the things again, but I can assure you that it's absolutely top of mind for the board. It's top of mind for Vicki and her team in T25. And although it's of no comfort to someone who's had a bad experience, the improvement has been absolutely radical. When you look at all of the numbers and the metrics, which the board do all the time, the improvement has been dramatic. Not fixed, still plenty of issues that we haven't resolved, of course, but compared to where the company was only a few years ago, it's dramatic. 70% of inbound calls coming in have been eliminated simply because those people don't have problems anymore.
Now, there's still a lot of people who do, and we're working on them, but I'm very comfortable that we're on the right trajectory.
Thanks, John. Another question from Gavin Smith: "What is the benefit to Telstra shareholders of another on-market shareholder buyback, when this value should have been paid to current shareholders, whom remain with Telstra even today? All the best, and thank you to the chairman for all of the work for Telstra over many years.
Well, a share buyback does benefit the current shareholders, and the whole reason that you engage in a share buyback, to reduce the number of shares on offer, and therefore, the value of the company is now divided by a smaller number of shares than it was before. Therefore, the value theoretically should rise, and similarly, we have fewer shares to pay a dividend to, so it gives the company the ability to pay a higher dividend going forward. So a share buyback is directly beneficial to the shareholders of the day.
Paul Wiebusch asks a question: "The official cash rate has increased 2.5% to 2.6% and is forecast to increase to 3.75% in 2023. Given the impact this will have on the discount rate used in Telstra's impairment testing, can you please advise the impact of the rise in interest rates on the carrying value of goodwill and other assets?
... So obviously, the Audit Committee, our external auditors, and the board review that every year. And we do an impairment test on all assets. But you'll be glad to know that even with a rise in interest rates, we have no risk of any impairment across any of our businesses.
Thanks, John. Giles Francis Baxter again: I understand that Telstra has now ceased its Telstra alumni discount for its past employees. I would like to see Telstra reverse this decision. We all know that we often pay a premium price for Telstra services, but if our ex-staff can still tell all of their family and friends that they are still with us, that's much more effective than many of those TV commercials, which are now running, and probably more cost-effective in the long run.
Let me take that one on notice, and we'll talk with management and make a decision of whether we leave it as it is or revert.
Thanks, John. Chris Wood asks: Is the chat function also operated in Australia? I think he would talk about our messaging function for customer service.
Oh, that I'm not sure. Vicki, would you know the answer to that one?
Yes. So, thank you for the question. A lot of our chat functionality is still operated by team members offshore, not all on, not all onshore in Australia.
Thanks, Vicki. Peter Caloiero: I noticed the broadband business had a poor year. What plans do you have to improve the broadband business in future years? Are other telcos eating your lunch in broadband?
Well, I don't think anyone's eating our lunch, but clearly, the broadband has been challenging for us, the migration to the NBN. We've heard quite a few people talking about some of the service issues that came with it, and also, obviously, profitability issues. When Telstra was the provider of wholesale broadband services, we obviously made a higher margin than we do now, where we have to buy that service off the NBN. So it's not where we would like it to be, but we have the ambition to get it into the teens and the returns, which I think we will achieve.
Okay, question from Stephen Mayne: Did any of the five main proxy advisors, ACSI, Ownership Matters, Glass Lewis, ISS, and ASA, recommend a vote against any of today's resolutions? Has there been a material proxy protest vote against any of today's resolutions? Will you disclose the proxy votes before the debate on today's resolutions so shareholders can ask questions about the reasons if there have been any protest votes? And did you consider disclosing the proxy position to the ASX with the formal addresses, as more companies are doing these days?
Right. A lot of questions in there, Stephen. And so, no, there have been no recommendations against any of the resolutions of the meeting. We do disclose the proxy positions of the resolutions before we actually finalize the discussion, as we always have done. We had no protest of any on anything material to advise the ASX of, but obviously, if it was something material, then under the normal disclosure rules, we would do so.
Thanks, John. Asked by Giles Francis Baxter: As Telstra has separated its structures, towers, poles, masts, et cetera, into a standalone company, will this increase the cost of supplying our mobiles network? Also, as the cost of hosting mobiles infrastructure increases, will the mobiles group go back to building their own structures again to save costs?
If I understand the question right, two rather different questions in there. Firstly, we will cover it at the Scheme Meeting afterwards, but the scheme will not change anything that customers, employees, shareholders experience. It is purely a legal restructure, so there won't be any impact there. As far as I know, we build all mobile towers and infrastructure that we need now. I'm not quite sure what was meant by that last part of the question.
Okay. Thanks, John. That deals with all of the online questions for item two. We're now going to turn to the phone and see if there are any questions on the phone. Operator, are there any phone questions for this item?
Chairman, I have a question from Mike Robey. Mike, please go ahead.
Good morning, everybody. It is still morning. My name is Mike Robey, and I'm a volunteer monitor for the not-for-profit Australian Shareholders' Association, and hold about 98 million, about 100 million in proxies for Telstra this time. We do actually represent all retail shareholders. And may I first start by apologizing for not having somebody in the audience. We did have a person on the ground planned to be in Sydney, but he got the flu and was coughing and probably would have emptied the stadium, given the current concerns with COVID, though it wasn't COVID. May I first start, Mr. Chair, by thanking you for meeting us in advance, where a number of our questions were advanced, and in fact, the questions prior in this meeting have answered many more.
We also wish to thank Mr. Penn the best for the future and welcome Brady to the running of our company. Look, given that many of the questions have been answered, I might just like to say that typically, shareholders are often presented with eye-watering, very expensive transformation projects, and Telstra was a fairly expensive project with associated large write-offs. And we assess... shareholders find it quite difficult to assess how these have gone, because much of the, if you like, the motion happens under the water. However, may we congratulate you on yours? It was very well communicated. I think your marcoms on how the whole T22 was structured, measured, and assessed were extremely good. And the customers have noticed the simplification of plans in large part.
And the removal of what we call gotcha costs for contracts and so on, has basically led to and the improvement of online services, basically pretty obvious to most customers. I think you've done a great job. So well done on that. And we do, of course, being shareholders, we just would like to see the shareholder value increase for the next year and are looking forward to the impacts of T25. So look, I might leave it there because we have some questions later on. Thank you.
Great. Well, thanks very much, and sorry you couldn't be here, but I know we have met with your team before, and always happy to do so in the future as well. So thank you for your comments on T22 success. We're really pleased, really chuffed. I think it's an absolutely fantastic achievement of management to have delivered what they have done. And we obviously share your view and concern that we continue to deliver increased shareholder value going forwards.
There are no further questions on the telephone at this time.
Thanks, well, John, that concludes the question session for this item.
Great. Okey-doke. First, I should, I think, advise that lunch is now being served outside for anyone who's interested. So next up is item 3, the director re-election. So as I mentioned, earlier, Eelco Blok and Craig Dunn are both standing for re-election today, and their details are set out in the Notice of Meeting. Items 3A and 3B will be voted on separately, but to assist with the efficient conduct of the meeting for the benefit of the shareholders today, I'll deal with the discussion of Eelco and Craig's re-elections together. I would now like to invite Eelco and Craig to address the meeting. While we hear from them both, if you have any questions on their re-elections, please come to your nearest microphone, submit your questions online, or raise your hand on the phone line. Eelco.
John, thank you. Good morning, ladies, gentlemen, and fellow shareholders. My name is Eelco Blok, and I have had the honor serving on the Telstra board of directors for the past three years. I've participated in our T22 transformation, one of the most ambitious transformations in the history of the telecommunications industry. I'm excited about our T25 strategy and look forward to contributing to this next trajectory. Since leaving my role as CEO of Netherlands-based KPN four and a half years ago, I've built on my over 35 years of experience in the telco industry. In addition to my responsibility on the Telstra board, I'm serving on the Greek OTE Group of companies and Fairphone board, performing advisory services for IFM's Investors, and served on the board of directors of Deutsche Glasfaser, all related to the evolving telecom industry.
These positions help me stay current with industry trends and keep me prepared to contribute to the strategic direction of Telstra. I would be honored to get your support so I can keep contributing to the future of Telstra. I look forward to serving Telstra during the next three years. Thank you.
Thank you, Eelco. Craig.
Thank you, John and Eelco. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. It's been a great honor for me to serve on the board of Telstra as your representative, and I'm grateful for the opportunity to say a few words to you this morning. Telstra, of course, occupies a very special place in the history of our great nation and has always made an enduring and very significant contribution to the communities in which it works, and I know it will continue to do so going forward. As John and Vicki have pointed out, through the successful implementation of T22 over the last three years, the company has gone through an extraordinary program of change.
I think that means Telstra is much better served going forward to adapt and grow in a rapidly changing environment, and to do so in a way that better serves our customers and importantly, rewards you appropriately for your investment in the company. During that time, it's been my great privilege to be part of a very diligent and hardworking board, very ably chaired by John. It's also been my honor to be a member of the Audit and Risk Committee, and also to have chaired that committee for the last three years, following on from Nora. I'm very conscious of the important role a board plays in the stewardship and governance of any company, and believe my background and career, including my learnings from my previous roles, mean that I can make a real contribution to the board of Telstra.
Thank you for listening to me this morning, and with your support, I look forward to continuing to serve Telstra and its shareholders over the next three years. Thank you, Chairman.
Great. Thank you very much, Eelco and Craig. So the board, other than, of course, Eelco and Craig, in respect of their own re-election, unanimously recommends their re-election. The proxy and direct voting positions for items three A and B are being shown on the screen now. As indicated in the Notice of Meeting, I also intend to vote all available proxies in favor of the re-election of Eelco and of Craig. I'll now take questions from the floor.
Chairman, I'd like to introduce Natasha Leaf.
Thank you, Chairman. Excuse me. Not a specific question about these candidates, but I did note that you mentioned that there's gonna be a bit of a changeover in the board members. I'd just like your reassurance that Telstra is committed to having at least 40% female representation. And also, you've talked about diversity within your workforce. I think that it's necessary to emphasize that they should be mindful of needing to have greater diversity in other areas across the board, because the board should be representative of the community it represents. And as I said, that's best practice, and it's shown that companies perform best when they do reflect the community. So we have that assurance?
You unequivocally have that reassurance. Yep, we publicly commit to the 40% target on the board, and there will occasionally be ups and downs as people leave and join, depending on timings. But overall, our commitment is absolutely solid. We will achieve that diversity balance.
Other forms of diversity.
Yes, absolutely.
Yeah, and some of the boards are moving towards 50%, but that's another discussion.
Yes. Well, we have two more, two more, I think I mentioned earlier, we have two directors about to join. We're pretty confident that you will view the choices positively.
Right. Thank you.
Thank you.
Chairman, I would like to introduce Peter Starr.
Thank you, John. Some years ago, you probably remember that, the votes that I had in relation to you, Craig, that, given what had happened at Westpac. So I'll just let you know that, there's been a change from the votes I hold, so we'll be voting for you. That was in a period of, as you know, what happened at Westpac, and now most of the board's gone. I was one of the strong opponents for the whole board to go. Thank you, John.
Thank you. Well, we much appreciate that. Craig is an exceptional director, and we give him our unanimous support. So I'm very pleased to hear that you do as well. Thank you. It looks like we've exhausted the room, I think, Nic?
Okay, great.
Online?
Let's go to online, John. So we have a question from Stephen Mayne. Craig Dunn was CEO of AMP for 5 years, until 2013, a company which has been an ongoing disaster for shareholders for more than 20 years. When he last stood for election as a Westpac director in 2018, there was a 35% protest vote, so he retired at the 2021 AGM. He suffered a 29.6% protest at the Telstra AGM in 2019. So why has the board endorsed his re-election today, and how big was the proxy protest vote?
Well, actually, I find that question somewhat offensive. Craig is an absolutely outstanding director. This is a Telstra shareholder meeting. It's not a Westpac shareholder meeting or anything else. In the years that Craig has been with us, he's been an absolute exemplary director. I would state my reputation personally, and I'm sure my colleagues would as well, on his integrity and the contribution that he brings to our board. Extreme level of diligence in chairing the Audit Committee, also a number of the subcommittees that we've had, he's participated in an exemplary fashion. His judgment, diligence, and skills are second to none. As I say, I would back my personal reputation on Craig's ability to be one of the best directors I've ever worked with.
Thanks, John. Another question from Stephen: After 14 years on the board and 6 years as Chair, it is very unusual for a Chair to flag possibly running for a 5th term next year and potentially staying for 16 years in total. Could the Chair explain what process is currently in place to source his replacement, and also, who conducts his performance review within the board each year? Who on the board is leading the process to ensure the Chair doesn't stay too long, and will any third parties be involved in the Chair succession process?
Well, Stephen, you'll be glad to know you won't have to put up with me for too much longer because I, I'm not going to stay here all that much longer. I think I mentioned that a little bit earlier, so we have a pretty robust process going on. One thing that was very important is that we didn't have the CEO succession and the Chair succession at the same time. I think everybody would agree that doesn't make for good sense and stability in a company. We had a very successful CEO succession process. Absolutely delighted with Vicki as our new CEO. So the focus has now turned into my succession, which is top of mind for the board.
We have a number of excellent candidates on the board already, and then we are also filling a couple of the vacant positions in the coming months with some external directors. I believe at the end of that, my colleagues, it won't be my decision, my colleagues will have a really robust and a qualified number of candidates to choose from, to be my successor. As for timing, as I think I said in my speech, if we get all that done by next AGM, next October, then I won't stand for re-election. If for any reason, we're still finalizing the board renewal or whatever, with my colleagues' approval, I would be prepared to stay on for a number of months, perhaps to finish that process, if it added value.
Now, if it didn't, then I'd leave anyway. And if it did, I would be very hopeful that we could resolve it all in a matter of months, not years. So, Stephen, I will not be here for another full term, rest assured.
Thanks, John. There are no more online questions for item three, so we're going to go to the phones. Operator, are there any phone questions for this item?
Chairman, I have a question from Mike Robey. Mike, please go ahead.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Look, we too are aware of Mr. Dunn's position as CEO of the AMP at the time when that company developed a damaging culture on profit before customer service, as revealed by the Royal Commission. We also note that last year there was continuing fallout of Westpac in the form of AUD 113 million fine from ASIC, stemming from the same commission at the time when Mr. Dunn was a board member at that company. So we did agonize over the decision of his re-election, but given the improvement in customer service and culture in Telstra during a period in which Mr. Dunn was director, he's clearly changed his way and so we're in balance, vote in favor.
My question actually is a general one concerning your board skills matrix, which we did discuss when we met. These are quite important to shareholders because we can assess if proposed incoming directors do, in fact, fill a skills gap. So the more granular the skills matrix, the more we can sort of, kind of test our understanding of why you've picked particular directors. And this is particularly important this year because you plan a significant refresh of the board. Your matrix is, we believe, too high level. There are much better models out there in the marketplace, and it's really not particularly useful at giving shareholders much guidance on a present candidate. So may I ask that you provide somewhat more granularity in the coming financial year, please, as you repopulate the board? Thank you.
Yeah, sure. Firstly, I just one correction. Craig was not at AMP when any of the issues you referred to arose, and it had absolutely nothing to do with Craig and his tenure at AMP, just like for the record. On the skills matrix, look, we continue to refresh that, every year. We also assess performance, and I think part of the previous question as well. We have a review of all director performance, and skills, and capability, and contribution, every year. And the Chair of the Audit Committee reviews my performance similarly. So we all, we all get compared equally. I'm very comfortable that we have a good balance of skills across, across the board.
With some deep domain experience, with our ex-global CEOs of big, big telecommunications companies overseas, through governance, through customer focus, through a whole range of different attributes. I'm pretty confident the balance is good. I think the new co-directors coming in will maintain or even improve that balance. But certainly I hear your question, and we'll make sure that in the next annual report, we try and trumpet a little bit more granularity around that for you.
There are no further questions on the telephone at this time.
Great. Thanks, Chair John. That concludes the question session for item three.
Fantastic. Thank you. So now, I move to items four and five on today's agenda, which relate to the allocation of equity to your CEO, Vicki Brady, under Telstra's FY 2022 Executive Variable Remuneration Plan, or EVP, and the adoption of our 2022 Remuneration Report. Details of the proposed grants to Vicki under item four are set out in the Notice of Meeting. Vicki's total remuneration package for 2022, during which time she held the role of Chief Financial Officer and Group Executive Strategy and Finance, included variable remuneration delivered through the EVP. In summary, the number of restricted shares and performance rights to be granted was based on the dollar value of Vicki's individual EVP outcome.
Her individual EVP outcome was determined by the board, taking into consideration Telstra's performance during the 2022 financial year against the specific measures set by the board, as well as her individual performance. The board, other than Vicki, considers Vicki's total remuneration package for the 2022 financial year, including the proposed grants, to be appropriate in all the circumstances and recommends the shareholders vote in favor of items 4A and 4B. Five provides an opportunity for shareholders to comment on and ask questions about our 2022 Remuneration Report. While the vote on this item is advisory, the board does take the outcome of the vote into consideration when reviewing Telstra's remuneration practices and policies. The board recommends that shareholders vote in favor of item 5, the adoption of our Remuneration Report.
Items four and five will be voted on separately, but as they both relate to remuneration-related matters, we'll similarly deal with the discussion of the two items together. So the proxy and direct voting position for items four and five should be now showing. Yes, they are now being shown on the screen. As indicated in the Notice of Meeting, I intend to vote all available proxies in favor of the grants to Vicki and the adoption of the Remuneration Report. So if you have any questions regarding items four or five, please come to your nearest microphone, submit your questions online, or raise your hand on the phone line. I will be concluding the AGM at the end of this question session. So if you have any final questions you'd like to ask about your company that are relevant to shareholders as a whole, please also ask those now.
Let me move to questions from the floor, please. Number three?
Chairman, I would like to introduce Peter Starr.
Thanks, John. This question always comes up. It came up for Andy, it came up for David. So in relation to this, I think it's a very proper and right thing that the granting of the rights to Vicki, we're certainly just supporting it with the votes I have and wish you all the best, Vicki. And just one other thing, John. Andy, I hope you're enjoying your retirement. It's great to catch up, and I think Vicki's catching up with you later on tonight. Thank you.
... Well, thanks very much for the kind comments, and I think Andy will definitely be enjoying his first AGM. He didn't have to sit in this seat and face all sorts of questions, so that's very nice comments. Thanks a lot. Any other questions from the floor? Nick, it looks like no more questions from the floor.
Just me.
Yeah.
Okay, no problems. Paul Wiebusch, John, is asking: Telstra's Annual Report highlights that the share price of AUD 3.85 is unchanged from the price in FY 2019, and a long way from the T2 price in 1999 of AUD 7.40. Given your past remuneration policies have not contributed to any growth in share price or shareholder value, what changes have Telstra made to ensure executive remuneration is actually aligned with shareholder value?
Well, I'll just remind you that the main reason that earnings in the share price have not advanced further is because 50% of the business was renationalized by the government. 50% of our earnings were transferred effectively to a new government entity. Inevitably, that led to a decline against previous periods. But I think we've commented a couple of times, we're absolutely delighted that that transition is now behind us, and the new Telstra is free of that baggage, and we're able to judge the performance of the company and management on the growth that we now deliver going forward. And we are on a good trajectory to do that. So I believe we've addressed the issue.
Thanks, John. The next question is from Stephen Mayne, and before I read this question, can I just make the point that I am reading the questions verbatim, and some of the material in the questions may not necessarily be the view of Telstra. Could the Chair and CEO please comment on the ESG elements in Vicki's contract and incentives, and whether, on the environmental side, they are concerned about Telstra being a minority shareholder in Foxtel, which carries Sky News, the largest source of climate-denying propaganda in Australia? When are we going to stop being embarrassed by being in a minority partnership with the Murdoch family, which continue to fight positive climate change policies on a global scale?
Okay, well, I can answer that one pretty quickly. We're very pleased with our ESG progress. This first part of your question, it previously was not in executive compensation. We have now included it for the first time, which I think management wholeheartedly support. We think it's a good measure to include, and we're in a good trajectory, so I think that's in a very good place. With respect to your comments about Foxtel, I won't dignify some of the things you said there with a response. We respect Foxtel, we respect Foxtel's shareholders. The reason that we're a shareholder in Foxtel is that all of us use mobile devices today, and the content that is shown on those devices is critical to many customers using us.
Foxtel provides one of a number, but a very important access to media. Telstra does not want to become a media company ourselves. We're not gonna go and buy a film studio in Hollywood or something. We're very happy to partner with other major players, and Foxtel is an excellent and valuable shareholder, as is the their owners.
Thanks, John. And another question from Stephen Mayne. Telstra has 1.25 million shareholders, but it is estimated less than 5% bother to vote at the AGM. When disclosing the outcome of voting on all resolutions today, including the Rem items, could you please advise the ASX how many shareholders voted for and against each item, similar to what happens with a scheme of arrangement? This will provide a better gauge of retail shareholder sentiment on all resolutions, and it was a disclosure initiative adopted by the likes of Metcash, Altium, and Dexus after their 2021 AGMs.
Well, obviously, normally, obviously, the deciding factor in any vote is the number of shares voted, rather than the number of individual shareholders. Sue, do we... Is there any reason why we couldn't or would or? No. Okay, leave it with us, then. Let me take it up, and we'll discuss. I don't think it's a huge issue either way, but we'll certainly have a look at it, and we'll get back to you.
Great. So no more online questions, but we will go to the phones. Operator, any phone questions?
Chairman, I have a question from Mike Robey. Mike, please go ahead.
Thank you very much. Look, first of all, congratulations on placing Vicki on exactly the same package that the previous CEO left. I think that's probably a model that will be copied in the future and basically lead to a better diversity interest in women participating in big companies. My question is about the performance rights portion of the CEO's plan, in which they can be awarded even if the shareholder return is negative. Now, we understand in the past, the famous NBN headwinds and the enormous amount of money that that destroyed from Telstra provided unusual conditions, and therefore, there was some pain coming, and we could not expect continuing increase in share price.
However, by your own discussions today and with us, it is clear that these headwinds have almost died down, and the future will be a newly transformed Telstra in a much more sort of clear wind. So why should shareholders continue to suffer negative returns if the total shareholder return remains negative? Thank you.
Yeah, look, it's a really good question. I know we've discussed this many times, but I think I referred to it earlier. Actually, in difficult times in a company, in times when the company is under pressure, even if it's for whatever reason, competition or government fiat or whatever it is, those are the most important times for you to reward your management. Coming to work every day is difficult. You're under a huge amount of pressure from media, from shareholders, from right across the board, and delivering the best possible performance as a management team at that time is absolutely critical to the fortunes of the company.
If you don't have the top people earning a commensurate level of income for the work they put in, then the results, the loss of the shareholder value decline will be even bigger. You'll see share price fall more, and you'll see dividends reduced more, et cetera. So, you know, we are firmly of the view that we need to tailor the plan to the objective of the day. Now, you're absolutely right, the NBN is behind us, so we're not anymore building in a factor of a negative headwind from NBN. That's behind us. But we will tailor the plan each year to the challenges of that year and obviously increase shareholder value, increase share price, dividend, all of those objectives figure high on the list. I think we're in a good place there.
There are no further questions on the telephone at this time.
Fantastic. Okay, I think that brings us to the end. Nic, before I move to close the question, do we have any other questions there?
I do have one final question, online by Chris Wood, just coming back on a question he asked previously.
Yes.
He says, "My apologies. I should have also asked if the chat function will be brought back to Australia?
Back to you again, Vicki. Sorry.
No, thanks, Chris, for that question. At the moment, we don't have those plans, immediate plans to bring it back onshore, but as part of our strategy, obviously, customer experience is right at the front and center of that. So that's something we'll consider over time, but no immediate plans.
Thank you.
Thanks, Vicki. So there are no further questions online, John.
Fantastic. Okay, thanks, Nic, and shareholders. So now we've finished our discussion on items 4 and 5, please submit your votes online or complete your voting card for these items. Shareholders, that concludes the formal business of today's Annual General Meeting. For those of you online, if you haven't already done so, please submit your votes. For shareholders here in the room, there are attendants carrying ballot boxes throughout the room, and ballot boxes are also located near the exits. The poll will remain open for a further 10 minutes to enable shareholders to submit their votes. The results of the poll will be available later today and can be obtained by visiting the ASX or our website. So I now declare our Annual 2022 General Meeting closed, subject to finalization of the poll on items 3 to 5.
On behalf of the board, I thank you, shareholders, very much for joining us today in person, online, or on the phone. So we will now take a short 30-minute break and commence the Scheme Meeting at 12:40. Yep, 20 to 1. So if everybody got wants to stay, please get, get a sandwich or something, cup of tea, and then we'll start the Scheme Meeting, as I say, in exactly 30 minutes' time. Oh, it's too late now.
You're after all.
I'm on? Yeah. Sorry, for those of you still in the room, please visit the shareholder registration desk outside to register for the Scheme Meeting if you want to attend. Further information is being shown on the screen. If you have any questions, please speak with one of our staff in the room here or in the area outside. We'll be happy to assist you. Similarly, for those shareholders joining us online or by phone, you'll need to go to a different online platform link to register for and attend the Scheme Meeting. The slide is now being displayed on your screen, which explains how to register and join us for the Scheme Meeting.
If you have any difficulties using the online platform or the phone system, please check our virtual meetings guide on our website, or call the help number shown at the top of your screen. Thanks very much, and see you again shortly.