Thank you, team. That was wonderful. Good morning, everyone. I'm Scott Perkins, Chair of Woolworths Group. I welcome you to the 2023 Annual General Meeting of Woolworths Group, and look forward to engaging with you during the course of today's AGM. I would like to welcome Aunty Donna Ingram back to our AGM and thank her for joining us today. Aunty Donna's family come from the Wiradjuri country, with Aunty Donna being a recognized cultural representative for the local Aboriginal community in Sydney. Aunty Donna has worked in Aboriginal affairs, government, and community organizations in Sydney for the past 35 years, with a focus across and impact across Indigenous education, community development, and women's leadership. I would now like you all to welcome Aunty Donna. Thank you very much.
Good morning, everyone. It's my great pleasure to be here with permission from my elders to acknowledge Gadigal country and welcome you to Woolworths AGM 2023. It gives me pride to represent my community in this important cultural protocol. It shows respect for and recognition to the unique position of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in Australian culture and history. The Gadigal are one of 29 clans of the Eora Nation, which is bordered by the Hawkesbury, the Georges, and the Nepean Rivers. I'm an Aboriginal woman who proudly identifies with the Wiradjuri Nation through my family connections from Central West New South Wales. I was born on Gadigal land, and I've had the privilege to live, work, and raise my four children on this land for most of my life.
My family has grown, and I'm now a proud grandmother to Aliyah, Elijah, Kalila, Lakota, Jake Jr., Archie, and baby Cade recently joined the family. My wish for my grandchildren is to grow up happy and healthy in a safe and inclusive society where they believe that their dreams can come true. I acknowledge the Gadigal, their spirits and ancestors, who will always remain with the land, Mother Earth, and I thank them for their ongoing custodianship. I'm also very proud to be part of the oldest living culture in the world, the Aboriginal culture of Australia, with our unique and distinct heritage, cultures, and identities. We have been here for over 65,000 years, and our people and our culture will survive into the future.
I pay my respects to our elders, both past and present, and we must never forget the sacrifices made by our leaders to create a better future for Aboriginal people. I do this as a reminder and as a tribute to elders and those who have gone before us to fight for land rights, justice, and equity for our communities. We will continue to honor their work and fight to be heard. I extend my respects to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people from all clans and nations who are present this morning. I also recognize our non-Aboriginal sisters and brothers from all backgrounds who walk beside us to support our aspirations. On behalf of my community and the Gadigal, I wish you a safe stay on the land and safe travel from the land.
I hope you have a productive and successful day to share your successes and challenges over the past year and plan for the year ahead to support Woolworths purpose of creating better experiences together for a better tomorrow. In closing, we remember that this is, was, and always will be Aboriginal land. Thank you, everyone. Have a beautiful day.
Thank you, Aunty Donna. We are very pleased to be meeting here, and thank you for joining us here today. I also acknowledge the traditional owners of the Gadigal country and pay my respects to elders past, present, and any Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander people here or online today. Turning to today's AGM, we are pleased to offer Woolworths Group shareholders the option of participating in person in today's AGM and also online. Our group company secretary has informed me that a quorum is present, so I declare our 2023 AGM open. For those attending in person, I would like to outline the emergency procedures for this venue. Please take a moment to identify the emergency exit closest to you. In the event of an emergency, one of two alarms may sound. The alert alarm is a series of warning beeps.
If this alarm sounds, please stand for further instructions from the hotel wardens. If the evacuation alarm sounds, a whooping alarm, all occupants will be directed by the hotel wardens to leave via the nearest emergency exit, quickly and calmly, and make their way to the assembly area. This is located at the fountains in front of ANZ on Martin Place. Once there, please remain at this location until hotel staff advise you it's safe to return to the venue. If we are required to evacuate, please leave your voting handsets and smart card on your chair. I would now like to introduce my colleagues on the stage here today. Starting on my right, our Managing Director and CEO, Brad Banducci. Warwick Bray, Chair of our Audit and Finance Committee. Warwick is standing for election at this meeting, and he will address the meeting later today.
Jennifer Carr-Smith, Maxine Brenner, Chair of our People Committee, and Holly Kramer, Chair of our Sustainability Committee. Starting on my left is Kate Eastoe, our Company Secretary, our Group Company Secretary. Tracey Fellows, who is standing for election at this meeting and will also address the meeting later today. Kathee Tesija and Philip Cronican, Chair of our Risk Committee.... Also in attendance today is Tom Imbesi, the company's Lead Audit Partner from Deloitte, and members of the Woolworths Group executive team, including our Chief Financial Officer, Stephen Harrison, and our Chief Legal Officer, Bill Reid. I will now talk through the procedural methods for this meeting. Instructions to help you navigate the online platform are available in a notice of meeting and in the online portal guide, both of which are available on our website.
The notice of meeting sets out the business of the meeting and the explanatory information for each resolution. If you have trouble using the online platform, please call Lumi. Their phone number is shown on the screen of your webcast. If we experience a significant technological issue or we are required to evacuate this building, I will suspend the meeting until we're able to recommence, or if we are unable to recommence within a reasonable time, I will adjourn the meeting to another day and time. We will provide shareholders with the details of any adjournment via the ASX and our website. Those of you participating online today will see a split screen with instructions on the left and the broadcast and presentation slides on the right. You can maximize the broadcast window by clicking on the full screen icon on the top right-hand side of the window.
To vote at today's meeting, you need to be registered as a shareholder. This includes body corporate representatives and attorneys or as a proxy. We will vote on each resolution by way of a poll. The final votes for and against each resolution will be released to the ASX after the meeting is closed. For those participating online, you can vote by clicking on the Voting tab at the top of the screen, which will open a list of all resolutions and the voting options. You can vote for, abstain, or against by selecting the option for each resolution once the poll is opened. If you change your mind and wish to change your vote, simply select another option. If you wish to cancel your vote, please press Cancel. There is no need to press the Submit or Send button. Your vote is automatically counted.
Once again, you can vote at any time while the poll is open. If you have multiple holdings, you will need to log in separately with each individual holding to lodge your votes. For those in the room eligible to vote, votes will be submitted using the electronic voting handsets. Those of you entitled to vote should have received a handset, a plastic smart card, and instructions on how to submit your vote. If you've not already done so, please insert the smart card into the top of the handset with the barcode at the bottom and facing towards you. Your name should now be displayed across the top of the screen of your handset.
If you are voting and do not have a handset, or your name is not displayed on your handset, please raise your hand now, and one of the Lumi or registry assistants will help you. Lumi, we have one shareholder or proxy holder. We have two in the middle here. Using your handset, select one to vote for, two to vote against, or three if you wish to abstain from voting on any resolution. Confirmation that your vote has been received will appear on your handset screen. You can change your vote at any time while the poll is open. If you wish to cancel your vote and have no selection recorded, press the X button. The green square to move on to the next resolution or the red triangle to return to the full list of resolutions are additional navigational aids.
Only shareholders or proxy holders may ask a question or make a comment during today's meeting. I ask that all questions and comments are to be directed to me. To allow us to work through the questions and to give shareholders an opportunity to voice the largest range of questions, I have asked the moderator to take the following steps for the smooth functioning of the meeting. Firstly, shareholders who have not already asked a question on the relevant item of business will be prioritized. Secondly, if there are multiple questions that are substantially identical, one of those questions will be read and the related questions answered together. Finally, we will conduct the meeting in a responsible manner, and I ask that shareholders are respectful when asking questions, as we will be when answering them.
There are two ways to ask questions: by using the microphone in the auditorium or by submitting a written and audio question via the online platform. For those attending in person, please see the attendant at the microphone nearest to you. We have two fixed microphone stands in the middle of the auditorium for ease of access. In the interest of giving all shareholders a fair opportunity to have their questions addressed, I will ask that shareholders please ask one question at a time, and please limit your questions to one question per item of business. If you're asking your question as a representative of an organization or a group of shareholders, please include that information in your question. To submit a written question, click the Messaging tab at the top of the screen. Type out your written question and select the Send icon.
To submit an audio question, select the Home tab and follow the Asking Audio Questions instructions. Enter the requested details and click Submit Request to join the audio questions queue. Shareholders will be able to listen to the meeting while waiting for their question to be asked. If you do have questions, I encourage you to submit them as soon as possible. A member of our internal communications team here at Woolworths Group will read aloud the questions to the meeting. I will deal with questions in accordance with the item of business they refer to. Every year, we receive a number of questions about individual customer service, product, or store-related matters. For those in the room, you can speak with one of our customer service team members in the foyer area after the meeting finishes.
For those of you online, if you submit a question about an individual customer or administrative share registry matter, I've asked the team to inform you that the best way you get resolution of your matter is through our customer service channels or through the share registry. Those contact details can be found in the Notice of Meeting, and also on the Woolworths Group website. Now, ladies and gentlemen, and fellow shareholders, after that epic procedural introduction, I have to say, on to my address as Chair of Woolworths Group. Welcome again to the ninety-ninth annual general meeting of Woolworths Group. Having assumed the role of Chair at the conclusion of the last AGM, it is a special pleasure to address you today to review the past year and update you on the group's performance and prospects.
I also look forward to the opportunity to meet many of you and address questions from shareholders during the course of the meeting. Woolworths Group's performance during the 2023 financial year reflects a business that is performing well across many of its key measures. Today, you will hear both from me and our CEO, Brad Banducci, as we share our perspectives on the past year. The group's performance in FY 2023 reflected those improving fundamentals, many of which stem from the long-term decisions we've taken during our transformation. The results also reflect the recovery from a very challenging FY 2021 and 2022, which were materially impacted by the pandemic and related disruptions. However, the most important driver of our performance this year is, again, the contribution of Woolworths Group's team members.
Throughout FY 2023, our team have lived our shared purpose of better experiences together for a better tomorrow. They have kept customers and their fellow team members at the center of every day on the job across the group. I would like to thank every team member for their hard work and care demonstrated throughout the year. I would also like to recognize the tragic passing of two team members in two separate workplace incidents in the last 12 months. We are deeply saddened by that loss, and on behalf of the entire board, we extend our sincere condolences to the families, friends, and colleagues of those team members. The safety of all team members is our primary objective, and while formal investigations into both incidents are ongoing, the business has not hesitated to make any necessary change to our workplaces to protect our team.
In our role as the board, we're also committed to relentless focus on safety and other material risks. Despite a group-wide effort and resulting steady improvement in online safety over many years, these events remind us that we have more work to do. In the context of these tragic circumstances, as it related to the safety measure and the short-term incentive, the board adopted a two-stage approach. The board determined that there should be a 10% absolute reduction in the group's short-term incentive for the vast majority of above-store salaried team members. Mindful that investigations are yet to establish the root causes of each tragic incident, the board committed to determine a further response informed by the outcomes of those investigations.
For the balance of my address today, I will touch on the board's perspective on the group's performance and underlying health before handing over to Brad to provide more of a detailed summary of our strategic progress, as well as an update on the group's trading following yesterday's release of our first quarter results for FY 2024. As a board, we are pleased with the progress Woolworths Group is making, but we take nothing for granted, and every day is a new day in retail. We are acutely aware of the choices customers have and the need for us to relentlessly improve to win and retain their trust. FY 2023 marked the return of a more stable operating environment for all businesses following the material disruption of COVID and the associated impacts of the last three years.
This operating environment, a phase-out of material COVID-related costs, and ongoing investment in recent years led to the group EBIT growth before significant items of 15.8%. However, if we were to exclude the material impact of COVID costs in FY 2022, EBIT growth for the group in FY 2023 was 3.4%. Reflecting the solid result, the board declared a fully franked final dividend of AUD 0.58 per share, which was up 9.4% on last year. This resulted in total dividends of AUD 1.04 per share, up 13% compared to FY 2022 and in line with earnings growth for the year. This reflects both this year's performance and our long-term confidence in the group's prospects. While the overall operating environment for the group improved in FY 2023-...
Global and local inflationary impacts created a new challenge as our customers' household budgets became increasingly stretched. Amid this backdrop, we have responded by delivering even greater value across our food and everyday needs businesses. This included weekly specials, low price programs and food, expanding the loyalty offer, and investing in our own brands to provide quality products and more affordable choices. Ensuring that all of our customers can access great value remains a key priority for the year ahead. As well as getting your Woolies worth, we increased our focus on investing in the quality, the fresh food, and the range that we are famous for. Material investment in the group's digital and e-commerce assets over many years has established a solid foundation that has enabled the group to respond to changing customer preferences.
Through our early investment into convenience, we can now offer online shopping options ranging from home delivery within 2 hours to direct to boot in over 700 stores to a MILKRUN delivery, which takes on average 33 minutes. We decided to give shareholders more visibility as to the scale and composition of these activities by reporting on our e-commerce profitability separately for the first time in FY 2023. The group's multi-year supply chain transformation is a key driver of productivity improvement, with the upgraded facilities enabling a wider and fresher range for customers, a material increase in capacity and improved efficiencies. Major new facilities opened over the last 5 years include the Melbourne South Regional DC, the Melbourne Fresh DC in Victoria, Adelaide Regional DC expansion in South Australia, Palmerston North DC, and Auckland Fresh DC in New Zealand, and the Heathwood Chilled and Frozen DC in Queensland.
A new fresh DC in Christchurch, New Zealand, and Woolworths Group's first automated customer fulfillment center in Auburn, Sydney, are on track to open in FY 2024. We continued our expansion into complementary adjacencies also during the year. This strategy draws upon what we have learned and established in our food businesses, whether it be our loyalty platform, data and analytics, own brand, store technology, and supply chain. While we will, will remain particularly disciplined in the investment of capital into these areas, pleasingly, the strategy is delivering with an impressive 27% sales growth in PFD, our food service business, a 29% sales growth in Cartology, our retail media business. The acquisition of an equity stake in Pets tock Group, announced in December 2022, subject to ACCC approval, will also enable more customers to conveniently shop for more of their everyday needs across our connected group.
If you are anything like our household, every shopping mission starts with the needs of your pet. Overarching all of this, we need to strike the right balance between providing value to our customers, recognizing cost pressures being felt by our suppliers, providing our team with competitive pay, and ensuring we are delivering an acceptable return to our shareholders. We believe that operating sustainably, having a positive impact on our communities, and maintaining the highest levels of governance benefit all of our stakeholders. We also recognize that it's not the Group's place to have a view on every social issue. Rather, we will focus on those which are tied to our purpose, where we can have a meaningful impact, and hence, which will be for the long-term benefit of the group. This year also marked the halfway point in the Group's 2025 sustainability plan.
While we recognize the progress made, we equally recognize that more work needs to be done. The group continues to progress on its pathway to net positive carbon emissions. To support this, we announced a target to reduce our transport emissions by 60% in 2030 compared to 2022 levels as part of the group's transport decarbonization strategy launched this year. We launched our latest reconciliation action plan earlier this year, detailing 97 deliverables to drive meaningful progress towards reconciliation with Indigenous Australia through a focus on employment, health, education, and sourcing.
We will also contribute the equivalent of an astonishing 34 million meals to our food rescue partners, including OzHarvest, Foodbank, and Fare Share in Australia, and Kiwi Harvest and the Salvation Army in New Zealand, which went towards the diversion of approximately 80% of our total food waste from Australian Woolworths supermarkets in FY 2023. These are only three focus areas of our many goals. We will continue to progress our sustainability plan in FY 2020 to 2025, to not only have a positive impact, but also make our business stronger and more resilient for the future. I would also like to take this moment to acknowledge Brad and the wider group executive team for their dedication and hard work during FY 2023.
We are indeed fortunate to have a team with the drive, the aspiration, and the care that every day is put to work at Woolworths Group. I would also like to acknowledge the dedication of my fellow directors over the past year, and the support they have offered to me and the management team. During the year, we welcomed two highly experienced directors, Tracey Fellows and Warwick Bray, to the Woolworths Group board. We're delighted to have Tracey and Warwick's wealth of experience, knowledge, and unique perspectives available, which will complement the board's existing skills. As we move on to our centenary year, in 2024, the board remains focused on supporting our CEO and management team as we execute on our ambitious strategy.
While our operating environment remains somewhat uncertain, we are reassured by the clear strategy, by the performance and underlying health of the group, and are energized by the opportunities ahead of us. We will be relentless in providing value for our customers and supporting our team across the Group. We will continue to realize the benefits of our investments to date, but we'll also continue to invest in a disciplined fashion to strengthen our cornerstone businesses and platforms, grow our adjacencies, and evolve the group to meet the changing needs of customers. Woolworths Group is at the heart of nearly every community in Australia and New Zealand. We look to the future with a sense of both responsibility and optimism, guided by the potential of working better together for a better tomorrow. Thank you all. I now invite Brad to address the meeting.
Thank you, Scott, and good morning, everyone. In my address today, I will talk about the Group's F 2023 performance and our Q1 results for F 2024. I will then provide a summary of our key strategic achievements before finishing on the areas of focus for the year ahead. I would also like to address upfront the tragic passing of two team members in the last 12 months. This has materially impacted the board and Woolworths team, and our thoughts remain with the family, friends, and teammates affected by each tragedy. The first tragedy was a contract cleaner working in our Jesmond supermarket, when tragic circumstances led to her passing away while working with a cleaning machine in November of last year. The second was a team member working in our Minchinbury DC, who in late June of this year was fatally injured, also while engaging with equipment.
As Scott stated, the formal investigations into each event to identify the root causes are ongoing, and we are fully cooperating with SafeWork New South Wales to ensure a thorough review is completed with no stone, no stone left unturned. We have taken immediate measures in both sites, and we're absolutely committed to ensuring learnings are acknowledged and properly implemented, so that every team member returns home safely at the end of every day. Sadly, we have also seen an increased case of aggression towards our team members, particularly in our stores, with more than 3,000 acts of violence, threats, and abuse reported in the last 12 months. This is not acceptable, and we are putting in place additional measures to support our team.
In conjunction with investments in areas such as CCTV upgrades, two-way radio headsets, as well as virtual reality violence and aggression training, we are working closely with the government to advocate for legislative change to help further protect retail workers. Equally important to us is the mental well-being of our team. To support this, we've partnered with Sonder to provide an app to all of our team members that provides unlimited access to health professionals, as well as safety, mental health, physical health, and well-being support. We also partnered with Good Shepherd to support the financial well-being of our team, which is critically important given the challenging economic circumstances we currently face. I would like to take this opportunity, as Scott did, to thank all of our hardworking team members for their continual commitment to our shared purpose of being better together.
Turning to the Group's performance. FY 2023 marked the return of relative stability in our operating environment following the material disruption from COVID in prior years. This increased stability, non-recurrence of COVID-related costs incurred in the prior year, and the realization of benefits from strategic investments, led to strong financial outcomes for the Group during the year. Customer shopping patterns continued to normalize, with customers coming back into stores more often and shopping more on weeknights and weekends. However, the growing demand for convenience continues unabated, evidenced by e-commerce sales returning to strong growth in the second half of FY 2023 and continuing into Q1 of the current financial year. While overall demand remained resilient through FY 2023 and in FY 2024 to date, customers are becoming more careful in their spending, particularly our saver families and young singles and couples.
We recognize the impact inflation and cost of living pressure is having on household budgets for both our customers and our team, and providing value to all of our customers remains a key priority. Yesterday, we released our sales results for the first quarter of FY 2024. Group sales increased by 5.3% to $ 17.2 billion, primarily driven by our Australian food business. We are also pleased with the continued strength in e-commerce, with group e-commerce sales up 16% to $ 2 billion in Q1. Importantly for customers, we saw a moderation in inflation in our food businesses in Q1. In Australia, the moderation in inflation has been offset by higher item growth, whereas in New Zealand, item growth continues to be more challenged.
For New Zealand Food, as we foreshadowed in August, the challenging economic environment and the competitive landscape means that the short-term outlook for the business remains uncertain. While it is still early days, the transformation of the business announced in July is progressing well, with new pricing mechanics launched late in the quarter showing positive early traction. Big W sales declined by 5.5% in the prior year, with a modest improvement in trend in the latter part of the quarter. While customers continue to be cautious and are trading down within Big W categories, we're seeing solid growth in summer clothing and in opening price point products that offer real value. The Christmas trading period will be a key to determining the success of the half for Big W.
I'm confident in the strong plans we have for Christmas across the group, and I hope you continue to choose Woolworths Group for all of your needs over the festive season. Turning now to the strategic highlights for the year. We made good progress in our group's strategic agenda in FY2023 to create value for all of our stakeholders. This can only be achieved if we live our purpose and stay true to our core values. We continued to receive strong external endorsement of our efforts, with Woolworths being named the Most Trusted Brand by Roy Morgan and the Most Valuable Brand by Brand Finance in FY2023.
Indeed, it was my great pleasure last night to attend Roy Morgan again and receive, on behalf of our hardworking team, the award as the Most Trusted Brand again in Australia for FY 2024, and that's thanks to all the amazing work of our team. Customers remain at the center of our strategy, and our customer metrics were broadly stable in FY 2023, despite a number of external challenges. Pleasingly, stores measured where the customers felt cared for in our group remained the highest customer metrics in every part of the group. Our latest Voice of Team survey has seen team scores improve on previous results, particularly for store teams, with an advocacy score of 17 compared to eight in FY 2022. This reflects higher scores relating to psychological health, safety, and well-being, recognition, and taking action on team feedback.
We've continued to invest in Australian and New Zealand supermarkets, with 22 new stores and 55 renewals completed in the year. Tailoring our stores to the needs of individual communities is also progressing well, with our core value and up store segmentation, and at the end of FY 2023, categories that account for half of Woolworths supermarket sales had undergone range curation. To meet the need, the demand for convenience, we have continued to expand and evolve our e-commerce offer. We believe that customers will increasingly demand ever greater levels of convenience, and at the end of FY 2023, over 80% of e-commerce orders were fulfilled within 24 hours of order, and 40% were same day. We've also seen increasingly, increasing focus on delivering better digital customer experiences.
Average weekly traffic to group digital platforms in FY 2023 increased by 16.3%, and weekly average visits to our Woolworths and Everyday Rewards websites and apps reached 17.5 million customers in Q1. Another area of progress in recent years has been the strength of the retail platforms we are building across the group. Our supply chain transformation continues to progress as planned, with our fully automated Melbourne South Regional Distribution Center now delivering 2.4 million cartons per week, and our new facilities in Moorebank, Sydney, progressing to plan. Our retail media business, Cartology, continues to grow strongly, with sales growth of 29% in FY23, and Wiq, the group's data and analytics platform, has leveraged its impact across the group, with over 30 high-impact use cases now turned into platform solutions.
In general merchandise, a strong third-party marketplace offering has become a key part of the digital customer experience. To accelerate our capabilities in this area, we completed the acquisition of MyDeal in September 2022, and are well progressed in leveraging these capabilities, in particular in Big W. In December last year, we announced our proposed investment in Pets tock Group. It remains subject to ACCC approval, and we remain committed to working with the founders to complete the proposed acquisition. We've progressed a number of key initiatives in the year as we marked the halfway point of our 2025 sustainability plan. In FY 2023, Woolworths Group was recognized once again for our efforts on inclusion and belonging, achieving platinum status from the Australian Workplace Equality Index.
As an employer of over 200,000 team members and a company that operates in most communities in Australia and New Zealand, inclusion and belonging are critically important. This includes our commitment to meaningful progress towards reconciliation with Indigenous Australians. We are proud to be one of Australia's largest employers of First Nations people, and we are committed to creating sustainable careers for them within our group. Woolworths Group also has the benefit of establishing and empowering our own Indigenous voice by our First Nations Advisory Board. For the recent referendum, we respected our team members' individual views, and our approach as an organization was to educate and show care for all leaders and team. We donated approximately $ 1.5 million to AICI, Uluru Dialogues, and Uphold & Recognise to specifically support education on this important issue.
Our reconciliation journey began long ago, and we remain committed to actively contributing through listening and learning and empowering the diverse voices within our group to continue to work better together for a better tomorrow. As part of our progress against our planet's sustainability pillar, efforts to reduce our Scope one and two emissions in FY 2023 resulted in a 36% reduction from our baseline, and we announced our commitment to a fully electric home delivery fleet by 2030. We also achieved an important milestone with the removal of reusable plastic bags nationwide, which, at the end of the phase-out, equates to approximately 350 million fewer reusable plastic bags annually, and you need to combine this with the 3.2 million single-use plastic bags that have been taken out of circulation.
On the product side, we are proud to retain the title of Healthiest Own Brand for the fourth year in a row, and it is great to see our customers continue to embrace our free fruit for kids, with 300 million pieces of fruit shared in FY 2023. Finally, we're very disappointed with the suspension of the REDc ycle soft plastics recycling program in November of last year after it came to light that the company had been stockpiling due to insufficient processing capacity. Over the last six months, Woolworths has been working as part of the soft plastics task force to identify potential processing arrangements for the existing stockpiles, and we are carefully working through the necessary steps in order to restart an in-store collection program in a responsible manner.
We will continue to invest in areas that align with our purpose and where we believe our scale and reach can have a beneficial impact on communities. Turning to our focus areas for FY 2024. Looking ahead, I'm energized by the plans we have in place to evolve and grow Woolworths Group for the better. The strong year we had in FY 2023 would not have been possible without the tremendous efforts of our team. In July 2023, we increased the retail wage paid to our store teams in Australia by 5.75% and by 7% for our New Zealand store teams. We're also focused on further enhancing team benefits via our Everyday Rewards Plus membership. This, in conjunction with our plans to deliver meaningful hours and careers through multi-skilling and cross-store working, which was recently rolled out to all team members.
In July of this year, we announced our plans to strengthen our trans-Tasman connections and accelerate the transformation of our New Zealand business. To date, we have already rebranded 15 stores to Woolworths New Zealand from Countdown, and contrary to some press reporting, the rebranding is a small component of the overall NZD 400 million we intend investing in New Zealand over the next three years. As part of this investment, we will roll out Everyday Rewards early next year in New Zealand and materially improve our fresh offer through the commissioning of our Christchurch Fresh DC in 2024 to improve our overall customer experience. And finally, investing to make sure our customers get their Woolies worth remains a key priority, and we will continue to provide a number of ways to help our customers spend less on their shopping.
This includes our seasonal Prices Dropped programs with our latest Prices Dropped for spring and next week, Prices Dropped for Christmas and summer coming out, which was, we look forward to, as well as in conjunction with that, a critically important Low Price you can rely on program focused on our own brands and in addition to this, our thousands of weekly specials. We have also continued to invest in our own brands to deliver new and affordable products that provide great choice for our customers without having to compromise on quality. Our Everyday Rewards members are increasingly looking for more ways to save through member boosts and boost for Christmas, and we have recently launched member pricing to add to the ways our members can realize even more value.
Big W has also played a key role in delivering value for our customers, with great prices and specials, particularly for key events such as Back to School, our annual Toy Sale, Halloween in a few days' time, and the festive season ahead. In 2024, we will celebrate our centenary, and as we reflect on our first 100 years, and it's a pleasure to actually welcome Roger Corbett, one of the great CEOs of Woolworths, who was pivotal in that 100 years. We look forward to the next chapter. We are united and galvanized by our shared purpose of being better together. In closing, I want to say thank you to all of our shareholders for supporting Woolworths Group and helping us create better experiences in FY 2023 for today and for a better tomorrow. And I will now hand back to Scott. Thank you, everyone.
Thank you, Brad. We will now turn to the formal items of business for this meeting. The items of business for today's AGM are set out in the notice of meeting and will be voted on by poll, which is now open. As set out in the notice of meeting, I intend to vote all open proxies in favor of each resolution. Our share registry, Link Market Services, will act as Returning Officer for the poll. All resolutions to be voted on are supported by your board. Before moving to the resolutions, ahead of today's meeting, we received a number of questions about the referendum and about Woolworths Group's support for the Uluru Statement of the Heart. I know Brad has spoken to this in his address. From the outset, I want to express my thanks to all of our team members.
In the lead up to the referendum, we asked all of our Australian leaders and team members to listen and learn, to inform themselves, and to be respectful of others' views on this issue. We have always seen reconciliation as an important element of a wider commitment to being an inclusive organization, consistent with our purpose of creating better experiences together for a better tomorrow. We know our team believes Woolworths Group is a better place when it is a more inclusive place. However, we were very clear with our team that each individual should vote on the referendum as they saw fit. The group has supported the aspirations set out in the Uluru Statement of the Heart since 2019.
In 2021, the group established our own Indigenous voice via the First Nations Advisory Board, and we now have first-hand experience of the positive impact First Nations voices and advice can have on our decision-making. In the lead up to the referendum, the g roup donated $ 1.55 million across various groups, supporting the proposition for educational purposes to help people understand the proposition and the referendum process. These donations will be declared to the AEC in due course. The investment was led by management with the consultation and support from the board. As Australia's largest employer and as the largest employer of First Nations peoples, with a unique presence in remote and regional communities, we have the opportunity in the ordinary course of our business to have a positive impact on these communities.
We believe it's the right thing to do for our team, as well as the Australian communities we serve, our business, and so you, our shareholders. We embodied these ambitions in our latest Reconciliation Action Plan, launched in May this year, a copy of which can be found on our website. Unreservedly, Woolworths Group remains committed to reconciliation and will continue to work in close partnership with First Nations peoples and the communities across Australia to do so. The first item of business is to receive the financial report and the reports of the directors and of the external auditor for the year ended June 25, 2023. There is no vote on this item. A copy of these statements and reports was published in the 2023 Annual Report and sent to those shareholders who requested copies.
Shareholders have also had the opportunity to view the statements and reports, including the 2023 sustainability report on our website. I now invite comments or questions on the financial statements and reports. All questions to the auditor should, in the first instance, be addressed to me as chair, and if appropriate, I will ask Tom Imbesi to address the meeting, and I may also call upon Brad and Steve Harrison to answer questions of a more detailed nature. I will firstly deal with questions from the floor and then questions submitted online during the meeting. Are there any questions in the room?
Mr. Chair, I would like to introduce Natasha Lee.
Thank you, Chair.
Nice to see you again, Natasha.
Nice to see you. It seems like a long time ago.
Yes, it's.
Last week. And firstly, I'd like to thank the board on their performance over the year. My question concerns interest on borrowings. I note that the overall year, the level of borrowings, short-term and non-current, actually decreased, but there was a significant increase in the interest and borrowings from AUD 77 million to AUD 169 million. While I appreciate interest rates have gone up, they don't seem to have gone up that much. Can you give a more detailed explanation for the increase?
Can I introduce you to Mr. Steve Harrison, our CFO, who's prepped to answer that question?
That's fine.
Thank you. Here he is, here he is. We'll answer it right now for you.
I'm sure you told him in advance.
Thanks very much. The increase in interest is a function of two things. One, an increase in average borrowing across the year. So while we finished the year with lower borrowings, actually across the year, we had higher average borrowings. And the second driver is that increase in interest rates. We have a mix of roughly 40% of our interest rates are fixed and 60% are floating. And so with the increase in variable interest rates and floating interest rates, we ended up with a higher interest cost through the function of those two reasons.
Shouldn't the fixed ones be at a lower rate?
They stayed at the same rate for the period, but it's the variable rate that's driving the increase.
It's gone up quite a bit.
Thank you.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you. Thank you, Natasha, for your question.
Chair, I'd like to introduce Mr. Judy Jia .
Thank you.
Thank you for answering my question. And, Mr. Gordon Cairns, as he always says, I have a hearing problem, and I said, "Woolworths has done a good job.
Thank you, shareholder.
Okay, thank you. And also, I just have a i 've got three questions, but I'll ask my first two. First question is, I can't see anywhere in the annual report about the Voice of Supplier. What happened to that? And a second question is, it's a bit alarming what Mr. Banducci has said about the spend, about the physical aggression in the clients. With regards to that, would investing in discounts help reduce the physical aggression that Woolworths face in high-risk areas?
Okay, let me. I'll give you an answer to the question, and I'll also pass on to Brad, I'm sure can provide some more detail. The Voice of Supplier is alive and well. Woolworths, again, has been rated the number one supplier by our suppliers for, I think, about the third or fourth year running through the Advantage Survey. That's, it's something that the board takes very seriously as another metric about the underlying health and performance of the company. But I don't know, Brad, if you wanted to add any further detail.
I think it's a great question because we're always trying to balance the right thing for the customer, the supplier, the team, and our shareholders. Actually, in the year, Roy Morgan, the Woolworths Supermarkets was the number one on Advantage Survey, and it's actually extended its level of advocacy, which is a remarkable achievement, given some of the really challenging conversations we're increasingly needed to have, given the, you know, the cost of living pressures we're under. But I call out a dramatic improvement in New Zealand, which actually made a major step up, and in Big W as well, which I think is also number one in the segment, as I speak today. So really nice improvement across the group.
A really key issue for us because we do need to keep an eye on particular small suppliers, and we've got some good feedback from the Code Arbiter in Australia, Mr. Chris Leptos, on ways in which we can do a better job for the small, smaller suppliers. In regards to aggression, it just feels like a dissonance in society, to be honest. We accept that people are under pressure, but respect is fundamental to the whole way we need to engage. So I think it's unfortunately a bit broader than if we invested more in price, which we're trying to do. There just seems to be some dissonance, and it's a very uncomfortable moment for us as a group at Woolworths because we really are customer-centric. It's our grand obsession to do everything for our customers, too.
So to ask our customers to treat us with respect is something it's taken us a long time to come to the point of saying because of the DNA of Woolworths. But unfortunately, with the number of incidents, we feel compelled at this point to say that. And the key issue there is to how we keep the team safe through various measures, and I don't think we can invest enough to keep the team safe. So that's more where the investment is, unfortunately.
Thanks. And, hopefully, your support with the referendum did play some part in helping keeping the team safe as well.
Thank you, shareholder.
Chair, I'd like to introduce Michael Skocic, please.
Two related questions. The first one is to the auditors: Has anyone at the audit team worked for PwC in the past 10 years? Because it relates to the probity of the audit. And secondly, in the first quarter results of this financial year, which were presented, why was 14 weeks included in the results for a quarter, which is 13 weeks, if I do my sums correctly?
It's right. I will ask Mr. Tom Imbesi to comment on the first point, but w hat I would say, shareholder, is the board is entirely satisfied through external review and our own rigorous review of the performance of the auditor as to the quality of the team. We've been very well served by Deloitte Touche for a period of time. But I will give him the opportunity to respond to your question. And then maybe, Steve, you can just comment on the weeks per quarter, which does vary according to the calendar. Tom?
Yeah. Thank you, Chair. And thank you for the question. I'm not sure that I can give you a response back to the period of time that you've requested. What I can say is two things. One, I'm not aware of anyone on our team that has come from PwC. Equally, I would say to you that, while PwC have substantial challenges relating to certain parts of their business, I would also state that there are many, many, very, very high quality professionals at PwC. And it's regrettable what they're going through, but equally, I'm not sure that it's appropriate to taint all of the people that may have previously worked or currently work, in fact, at PwC, with some of the unique challenges to or specific challenges that they're going through at the moment.
Yeah, yeah.
Well spoken, Tom. Thank you for that. Steve?
Yes. So we run a weekly operating rhythm as a retailer, and so our quarters are a series of weeks, and our months are either a four-week or a five-week month, the way our reporting calendars work. And so, the first quarter is always, 14 weeks. And so, we've reported on a comparable basis year on year.
Thank you, shareholder.
Chair, I'd like to introduce Donald Adams.
Thank you. I'm Don Adams. I'm standing as an individual shareholder today and not in my former capacity as a representative of the Australian Shareholders Association. Last week, Endeavour announced that even if Bruce Mathieson Jr. is voted off the Endeavour board, there should be a representative of the BMG group on the board. They said nothing about Woolworths, even though you have a 9.1% shareholding and about AUD 600 million in related party transactions. Why isn't there a Woolworths representative on the Endeavour board? And will you vote to elect Bruce Mathieson Jr.? to the Endeavour board?
Thank you for your, thank you for your question. Woolworths has never had a director on the Endeavour board. When we demerged, there was a Woolworths representative, there was one common member for a period of time, our director, Holly Kramer. When we demerged Endeavour, we wanted to give both companies the independent opportunity to go and pursue their own growth strategies and realize their full potential. So we never felt that the shareholding at the time needed to have a formal long-term link back to Woolworths Group. It was in the nature of a transitional shareholding, and since then it has been sold down now to a little over 9%.
But as you rightly say, still an important investment for the group, and one that we obviously take an active interest in. Those trend, the contractual arrangements we have with Woolworths are also important to the, to the company. They are on an arm's length basis. They are also, other than our rewards relationship we have with BWS, in the nature of transitional support, as EDG was de-merged and as they go on to pursue their independent life.
What about the voting for Bruce Mathieson Jr. at the-
Yes, we announced yesterday in our Q1 results that we felt the most appropriate exercise of our votes were to support the board of the company to resolve these matters, and accordingly, have given our proxy to the chairman of Endeavour Group to bring about that fact. Thank you for your question.
Chair, I would like to introduce Jane Marks.
Hello. I'm a shareholder, and I'd just like to talk about the upcoming drought. Have you made any provisions for that? It's just that my parents came from the land, and water is so important. Have you made any provisions or anything like that? Because it seems like we're gonna go into a long drought again.
Shareholder, that's a brilliantly good question. Yes, we have. We certainly hope that obviously the predictions of a very challenging summer and the increased fire risk doesn't present itself. But we do need to be prepared. So at an operational level, we are building higher levels of stocks in stores that we might think might be exposed to extreme weather events. We've also through at one level our Sustainability Committee done some long-term thinking on physical asset resilience of our network, and also at a more day-to-day level through the property and WooliesX teams ensuring that our stores have got a little bit more operating flexibility to cope with quite unpredictable operating conditions. So your question is absolutely spot on.
I think Woolworths, if we look back through floods and fires, Woolworths has done an incredible job at managing to solve seemingly impossible supply chain issues, to make sure our stores in remote or vulnerable communities have got adequate amounts of stock to meet customer needs in difficult conditions. So thank you for your question.
Scott, anything c ould add just on our investments. We've tried to expand some of our key DCs because of our exposure. So you'll see our regional distribution center in Western Australia, as we've expanded it, just given the challenges of getting product across the Nullarbor and the challenges that move there, and we've done the same up in Townsville, and then sort of created secondary staging points as well. We're worried about the drought and of course, unfortunately, the fires, and we've started to see individual instances of that already. So, we're all nervous about what lies ahead, but hopefully well-planned.
Chair, I'd like to introduce Roger Corbett.
For those of you who don't know, ladies and gentlemen, Roger, and I think probably everybody does, but Roger was a former CEO of Woolworths. So, it's a pleasure having you at the meeting, Roger.
Thank you, Scott. Congratulations, Chairman, on your appointment as chair and your excellent speech today. And to Brad, your period of time as Chief Executive, what a impact you've made on this company. And, your great belief in being a caring company, I'm sure is an inspirational to everyone in Australia, including your proud shareholders. Thank you very much.
You can sit down now if you want, Roger.
You might ask me to do that. Because I think you might know what I'm going to say.
Yeah.
I've made a practice, a study practice, of never critiquing my successes, except to say good things that I've just said. There's nothing worse than a chief executive that feels he's an ongoing expert. We all have our time, and my time has been. And, Brad and his team have done, in my view, a superb job in this company. Some number of years ago, Mr. Chairman, your board recommended the divestment of the ALH assets on the basis, along with many BWS stores, the new entity, Endeavour Group, would be a much better way to manage these specialist assets. A goodly time has gone by for that to eventuate, and the shares have dropped 40%. That is, by any measure, a serious and significant drop. We've heard Bruce Mathieson, the expert in pubs, say the pubs are not being well managed.
I think we might assume that he might be Australia's expert in that field. And, sir, I have been bold enough, and not in the Woolworths context, which I won't do, as I said, but in the Endeavour context, to say that in my view, the bottle shops or the retail outlets have completely lost their mojo. The shares are down 40%. The comp stores, which is one of the most important measurements in retailing, is zero or less, and the market share is slipping. Sir, your board have chosen to support the status quo. I think your shareholders are entitled to know the reason you chose that, because the status quo is so bad.
Woolworths has lost circa AUD 200 million on its investment, and I think I might be in company with a lot of us here that are both Woolworths shareholders and Endeavour shareholders, and we, sir, have lost a lot of money. What are the circumstances? How much worse does it need to get than a 40% reduction in the share price for Woolworths to use its 9% to protect its own investment, but alas, Sir, our investment that we have made on your recommendation? Thank you, sir.
Thank you. Thank you, Roger. So I think there are some respectful boundaries that I want to observe and, but give Roger's very good question a proper answer. Those respectful boundaries are, this is a Woolworths annual general meeting, not an Endeavour Group annual general meeting. Second boundary is, I absolutely acknowledge, as the board, we retain a significant investment in Endeavour. It's, it's many hundreds of millions of dollars. And I want to assure you that as a shareholder, we have, we get a great deal of review. It's, it's a topic of absolute focus for the board to ensure that we and are the best possible custodians of your money in terms of that investment.
It does not give us any pleasure at all to see the public matters that have spilled out into the media in respect of Endeavour Group. Our view going forward is that we sincerely hope that the Board of Endeavour Group can resolve these issues and get back to business, creating value for all its shareholders, including us as Woolworths Group. Nonetheless, I don't think it's appropriate for me to dissect the Endeavour Group strategy at this annual general meeting. I am prepared, as I have been with all members of the Mathieson family, to communicate with them. I have met in person with Mr. Wavish and listened to his plans for the company. We have considered this carefully at the board.
Brad and the management team have had multiple opportunities as a large shareholder to communicate with the Endeavour management team. Putting all of that together, we continue to believe that appropriate action was to support the board, but with a clear message that there is work to do and that we obviously look forward to a return in performance from our investment. Your point is well made. It's absolutely on our agenda, but with respect, I'm not going to enter into the debate around the Endeavour strategy at this board meeting. Thank you, shareholder.
Now, I'd like to introduce Daniel Chan.
Good morning, everybody.
Good morning, shareholder.
I just one simple question, Mr. Chairman. Does Woolworths employ foreign students for casual work? Because a lot of foreign students come over here with great expenses. Some of them are financially strapped. Thank you, Chairman.
We most certainly do, and I'll pass over to Brad for details.
There are caps in the number of hours foreign students can work, but w e certainly do. We are very focused on actually providing great jobs for youth, whether it's as they are still at school or in university, and we think that's one of the key roles we play. That includes foreign students. There are caps on the number of hours that they're allowed to work, so we've got to be very vigilant on those, but they're among our hardest-working team members. So yes, we certainly do, and intend to do that going forward.
Thank you.
Mr. Chair? Mr. Chair, I'd like to introduce shareholder, Alan Lakeman.
Yes, thank you, Mr. Perkins. Look, I have to keep my question brief and to the point. But, it's to do with the $ 1.55 million spent on Indigenous education. Could you tell the meeting what proportion of that was spent on the average Aboriginal communities in remote and regional areas, and what sort of accountability feedback you get from the expenditure of those monies?
Yes. The $1.55 million was split between three separate First Nations organizations that we chose to achieve our primary objectives, which were education to actually lift understanding in the broader community, to enable people to make a more informed choices. That included Australians for Indigenous Constitutional Recognition. They got about $1.25 million of the $1.55 million, the donation. And we left it to them to actually prioritize the expense of those according to the objectives that we set and the conditions we set. We have been in active dialogue and communication with them to ensure that those monies were spent in the way we had intended, in the best possible fashion, but ultimately, we trusted them to do the right job. Thank you. Thank you, shareholder.
Chair, sorry, could I just add, we do have other investments we place into disadvantaged communities, primarily through Australian Grocery Wholesalers, to provide affordable fresh food, and we work very closely with the local retailers in those communities to do that. And then, the big investment is education, employment, and trying to really help, provide opportunities for employment. So that's the primary focus outside of that, on disadvantaged communities.
Thank you, Brad.
Chair, I would like to introduce shareholder, Rowan Weir.
Hello.
Yeah. Oh, good morning, Chair. It's more to comment. And one, I was just gonna make a comment about the wine. I would not—COVID has changed everything. I'd normally be trotting around with my dozen, taking a bottle with me and, and going out. But now we meet out, and you drink, and only about four of you, so you're not socializing like you once did. But I'll get a dozen for Christmas. But the other thing was, it's just curious, in the presentation, I was interested where the. It's probably in the report, where the Woolworths was in New Zealand, and I would—And also south of southeastern of Melbourne. And if you just put a map up on there and put where a few of them are. It's probably silly, but it's, it meets my...
Where you're expanding, a map, and it's easier because you're looking at places and you haven't a clue where they are. Thank you.
Shareholder, I would encourage you with your dozen to join one of our brilliant new Christmas puddings that are coming out. We tried them all as a board the other day. They're gonna be fantastic, so enjoy. Have a happy Christmas with those, please. We'll take on board your feedback about the store map.
BWS. I live next to Woolworths. I've moved house, and I've got to get a fridge for the grog.
Thank you. Thank you, shareholder.
Chair, I'd like to introduce Judy Jia.
Welcome back.
Okay, thank you. I've got two questions. First question is in regards to water management. There's nothing in the annual water management. There's nothing in the annual report that's that reads water management, even though I feel that's the most important part of ESG. It's just an extension to the lady in the green that that asked about our drought situation, just an extension upon that. Second question is in regards to page 19. I do support the referendum and First Nations. Also, is there any way that you support First Nations entrepreneurship as well?
Let me think. Two very good questions. Thank you. I'll pass on to Brad, and maybe even Alex Holt, our Chief Sustainability Officer, to add any more details on the waterfront, but it's absolutely front of mind.
I think it's just a great question. We actually are working on a store level and trying to find ways to reduce water usage at a store level. We came out of the last drought, and it's hard to believe we are again on four years since the terrible bushfires that happened. So we will provide more information on that and things like trolley cleaning and a whole range of ways we used to use water, we don't anymore. So I think it's a great question, and we will report going forward, but it's very much on our minds. So thank you on that.
Yep. And on First Nations entrepreneurship, we're the largest employer of First Nations people in the country. And the best possible start for a entrepreneurship is to get a job. And a job at Woolies with the training environment, the support, the exposure to everything from day-to-day retailing through to all the technology, that these days is increasingly defining contemporary retail. That is, I think, a brilliant start to an entrepreneurial career, and we certainly hope that we'll celebrate Indigenous entrepreneurship going forward. Thank you very much.
Okay, thank you.
Chair, I would like to reintroduce shareholder, Natasha Lee.
Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Chair. I note that the Big W group, it seems to be a bit of a laggard within the company. I understand that some of the challenges are to do with cost of living and pressures which households are facing. I suppose from my own personal experience, our household hasn't actually shopped at Big W for a number of years because we've basically boycotted it. Because what we found is that we could never find or get the things which were in the catalog. I think going back, maybe it was trying to be too many things for too wide an audience. Like, you had like 50, 70-page catalogs, and the stores don't necessarily stock all those items.
So, it's sort of like this enticement, "Oh, I'll go buy that." But when you get there, you can't find it or it never existed in that store. So, I'd like to know what sort of measures you're taking to sort of win back that loyalty and take on board the feedback that, you know, maybe a smaller catalog, where you can actually pretty much provide the stock to the stores, given that you've got this huge network of stores as well.
Natasha, it's time you went back to Big W. There's a great store up in, near Town Hall, above the supermarket, which is very close to you. You'd go and have a look. Big W is a dramatically different business to what it was even two or three years ago So we actually have got a great deal of optimism about the potential for Big not only as a standalone business. Yes, admittedly, the general merchandise category is more challenged through online competition.
But as part of the Woolworths Group, we're seeing very exciting trends as to the way our connected customers, our Everyday Rewards members, are actually trading in the Big W and getting that refreshed experience. It's a very different store in terms of its customer value proposition. In recent times, it has been up at the forefront of some trading down. But if you look over the arc of time, three year growth rates, the development of our e-commerce business, changes we've made to format, a lot of fixing the basics that are still in progress, but with, we think, considerable opportunity.
And then the marketplace businesses we're building in and around Big W, we think it makes for quite an exciting future. So don't, don't give up hope. Go and try us again, and hopefully, we'll win you back.
Thank you. Yeah, I think that sort of reflects what I'm saying, is that you discouraged customers at one point, and it's very hard to entice them back. But I have seen the Woolworths, the Big W, the Woolworths store here, so I might give it a try.
Good. Let us know. Thank you.
Chair, I would like to introduce shareholder, Peter Shilton.
Mr. Chairman, as a frequent visitor to Woolworths stores, I can't help but notice the large amount of refrigeration freezers, et cetera, which is in every store and also in the warehouses. Could you tell me, I'll cut the question short by just saying, how much do you pay a year in electricity costs, and how much has that increased over the last two years?
So, it's an excellent question on a number of different dimensions. Woolworths is one of the largest electricity consumers in the country. We're, I think close to 1.5% of total demand. We're a very large energy consumer. As we've detailed in our sustainability report, I think the team has done a tremendous job at getting ahead of the renewable energy mega trend that we're in the middle of, and starting the decarbonization journey, which has been to our benefit in terms of cost. We are on track to 2025, fully renewable energy in our stores. And the good start that we've made, 100% in South Australia, line of sight, 100% New South Wales, with plans in the rest of the states.
I think we'll stand us in good stead to actually weather the more volatile energy world that we're living in. In terms of refrigeration, you're absolutely right, it's a significant source of emissions for us, and we have, over the last recent years, been implementing transcritical refrigeration solutions as part of our broader renewals. It's an expensive solution, and we are refining it, but we think it's got very great promise to reduce completely the emissions from our refrigeration fleet. So you'll be hearing more about that in the years to come. Thank you for your question.
Chair, I would like to introduce shareholder, Tony Breen.
Good morning, Mr. Chairman and Board.
Morning.
Look, I'm here in my own right as a shareholder, but also on a number of investment committees and boards that represent a lot of superannuation funded, non-super investors across Australia. But this question is mine alone, but it represents also the views of many, a lot of feedback we get. I'm constantly told through the financial advisory networks that we have, that the shareholder, that the, beg your pardon me, members of those funds that we offer, are somewhat critical of the boards generally and the overreach they feel by supporting causes which are not core business for that firm. Clearly, you've raised one which Woolworths has a very strong interest in today, which is very fine.
But many of it said to us: "We didn't endorse this, and we didn't endorse, certainly didn't endorse the support of the Voice." And especially considering when it was still published on your website, as many pointed out, only 38% of people in Australia seemed to support it at the time. And so they felt, isn't it gonna alienate a lot of Australians from going to Woolworths? And I know that you mentioned also that you don't support every social cause, which I'm very pleased you don't.
But first, first of all, do you think it's in... You've got the mandate to support any particular causes? Secondly, how do you choose which causes do you support? And thirdly, how do you measure them? As you'd said, you only support those which you think have a long-term benefit to the group. How do you measure in your ears, whether they've worked or not?
Thank you, shareholder. I think this is an entirely fair and reasonable question, and I'm glad you picked up on the comments I made, not only about our conviction in respect of reconciliation, but also the point I made that we do not support every social cause. There is a broad array of potential sustainability and social issues. We choose to solve for a couple of critical duties we face. Our duty as a board of directors is to the corporation, to Woolworths. What is the best long-term interest of Woolworths? And so when we think about that, we have to strike a balance between customers, team, suppliers, our community, and of course, shareholders as a whole.
Our sustainability agenda reflects a more focused subset, which is increasingly going to be talking about decarbonization, given how large we are in, as a consumer of electricity. It's increasingly going to talk about food security, not just zero waste to landfill, but more innovative solutions for food waste, right from farm gate through to your fridge and our supermarket. It will increasingly talk about plastics and the circular economy. Why? That's what our customers remind us of every time they're in store. And it will increasingly talk of the fourth element, which is health. Our ability to provide customers with healthier choices to enable them to make the right decisions. So our sustainability agenda, and if you like, our broader social cause agenda, ties back, we think, to what ultimately our customers want.
If we deliver on that, we will earn their trust and respect, and if we earn their trust and respect, we'll earn their business. But do not expect Woolworths to have views on defense, and trade, and how to run hospitals. That's the job of the government. But as the largest employer in the country, with the largest network into rural and remote communities, with 24.5 million Australians shopping with us every week, we hear their voice loud and clear. They want action on decarbonization, they want action on plastic, they want action on food waste, and there's an increasing interest in how to look after themselves better through the dietary choices that we can enable.
With that focus, to be customer-driven, ultimately reconciling to our corporate duty and our purpose, I think you'll be satisfied that there is sufficient rigor in and around the focus and selection of these causes and broader sustainability challenges and opportunities. Thank you, shareholder.
Chair, I'd like to introduce Mr. Taylor.
Mr. Taylor.
Thank you. Chair, I incurred the wrath of the chair at the last annual general meeting, your former chair, and I want to convey a congratulations. I asked a question about Woolworths' lazy tax on their insurance when the renewal was about 10% higher than going online. Now, it's only a sample of one, but I found that that had been substantially reduced when I came to renew my insurance. I don't know whether, Brad, that is a deliberate policy or whether it's just.
The chance that it happened. So that's my compliment. My question is: we know Woolworths and most of our shareholders are strongly committed to reconciliation. We saw that in the announcements or in Big W that stopped at the 20th of July. We saw that in the contribution you made to the referendum and so on. But will it be practical? At the commencement today, we said, "This land always was, always will be." Will Woolworths be giving back the land that it owns to the traditional owners? But giving away shareholder wealth is one thing. How many of the board members will personally commit to giving away their land or giving back their land to the traditional owners? Thank you.
Over to you, Brad. Talk to the belonging. Yes, you too. I'll firstly invite Brad to make some comments, and then I'll also address your question. Thank you.
I think the issue that we're talking to goes to the heart of what we're trying to be as an organization. And we employ over 200,000 people of various guises, descriptions, backgrounds, whatever it may be, and we are focused on everyone being, being able to belong at Woolworths. And belonging and inclusion is central to who we are. And when there are issues around belonging and inclusion, it's incumbent on us as an organization to talk out on those. And whether it's same-sex marriage, whether it's a voice, these are central issues to what we need to do, and they're important to us. They're important to the communities that we serve.
I'm very acutely aware of it as a first-generation Australian, not as a first Australian, and it is on my mind continuously and on the mind of the group executive and everyone at Woolworths. So this is the heart of who we are as a business, and we think it's good for business if we actually feel this way. That's why you see care scores being the highest score at Woolworths, because we care. We care for customers, and we care for every team member at Woolworths, and we want them to feel comfortable, energized at work. We also recognize by having a diverse team and by having them all belong, we will make better decisions. People bring different perspectives to issues, and you make the best decisions when you've got different perspectives in the room.
So that is something we should talk about and something we should talk out about. How we do it is the question, and not whether we should do it. The way we've tried to do this one is through education. We have not tried to ask our team to vote in a specific way. We have tried to be very careful about that. We speak about that a lot. Every team member at Woolworths makes a decision, but we wanted our team to be fully informed. So whatever the decision was, we did not feel we had left a stone left unturned, and that's how we invested the money we talked about, but also the dialogue inside Woolworths.
We accept the decision that's been made, but at least we feel that the team were informed, and when we test our team on the metric of: Did you feel informed through the process? They would say, "Woolworths made us feel informed." And I feel good about that, and I think everyone in this room should feel good about that. We informed our team. They made a decision. We can now go back to every one of our team feeling like they belong at Woolworths. I don't resile from what we did. Actually, I feel proud about what we've done and proud about how we, as a collective, have stood up and prosecuted this particular issue.
We can't sit here and say we want to be for every Australian, every customer to come and shop in Woolworths without being for every-- without our team feeling that way as well. So I think it's, I think it's really important, and that we are better together.
Well spoken, Brad. Thank you. Thank you, shareholder. I, I think if there are no more questions in the room, I'll turn to questions online. Moderator,
an online question from shareholder Kylie Ann Gadsby: "Can the auditor please outline the audit procedures performed to address the risk of underpayment of employees and the findings from these procedures?
I'll now ask Mr. Tom Imbesi to address the question.
Thank you, Chair. I appreciate the question in advance. It does enable me to provide a more considered response, and I will refer to my notes in responding to the question. I'll also acknowledge to the non-auditors in the room and online that outlining audit procedures may not be the most exciting part of your morning. But the area of payroll is clearly an important part of the financial report, and therefore, I appreciate the question. I will begin by acknowledging the impact of underpayments on employees and the complexity faced by businesses in maintaining compliance with relevant employment awards, including the General Retail Industry Award, the GRIA, that many of Woolworths employees are subject to.
These complexities are well outlined in the Note 3.13 of the financial statements, and I encourage shareholders to refer to that note in particular. In our audit report on page 172 of the annual accounts, we do highlight the objective of the audit is to assess whether the financial report as a whole is free from material misstatement. The audit is designed to provide reasonable but not absolute assurance over the financial statements, and it's not designed to provide assurance over individual account balances. Having said that, I'll address the question in two parts: the audit procedures performed to assess payroll expense in the current year, and also the audit procedures performed to assess team member remediation provisions held by the group on the balance sheet.
For payroll expense, we perform an assessment of risk, identifying potential risks of misstatement relevant to payroll. Those risks are informed by our understanding of the business, the internal controls relating to payroll, and the complexities of relevant employment awards, including the GRIA. To assist us, we employ our and engage our internal pay remediation specialists. We obtain an understanding of the reasons behind the historical instances of non-compliance and whether they may continue to present a risk in the current year. Having done all that, we then perform audit testing using a combination of procedures, including substantial sample-based tests of individual employee wages across each of the businesses in the group.
For pay remediation provision, we again use our pay remediation specialists, and our procedures include assessing group's compliance testing and confirming the end-to-end payroll review that the group undertook, confirming that it had, it had been completed for all Australian businesses and employees. We obtained supporting calculations for each of those remediation provisions. We tested those provisions and changes in those provisions arising from payments to employees, including reviewing the estimates and judgments therein. We reviewed all correspondence with regulators and understanding the status of relevant legal proceedings. We assessed, importantly, the appropriateness of the disclosures in relation to these matters in the annual report. I again refer you to Note 3.13, where management highlight the uncertainties that remain in relation to the group's exposure. Also in relation to relevant regulators and the legal proceedings that remain on foot.
Having completed our procedures, I can say no material misstatements were identified, and as reflected in the annual report on page 172, we ultimately obtained the assurance we needed and have signed an unqualified audited opinion. Thank you.
Thank you for that comprehensive response. Tom? Moderator.
Chair, we have an online question from shareholder Mr. Peter Maloney: "Why are Everyday Rewards benefits different in Tasmania, and will they be merged?
I'm pleased to announce to the shareholder, they indeed have been merged. Everyday Rewards was launched in Tasmania in August 2020, replacing a prior program, but is now operates as a unified program. So thank you for the question, shareholder. That concludes the discussion on item one. Thank you. I confirm that the financial report and report of the directors and external auditor for the year ended June 25 2023, have now been received. I will now move to the re-election and election of board-endorsed non-executive directors, Warwick Bray, Tracey Fellows, and myself. A separate resolution will be put for each director. The board follows a structured and externally facilitated process to assess the skills and experience of directors, both individually and collectively.
This input is combined with the outcome of the annual external board performance evaluation when determining whether to support the re-election of existing directors. Having followed that process, the board, other than each candidate in respect of their own candidacy, unanimously recommends that shareholders vote in favor of my re-election to the Woolworths Group Board and in favor of the election of Warwick and Tracey to the Woolworths Group Board. As Resolution 2a is for my own re-election as a non-executive director, I will now step down as chair of the meeting and hand over to Phil Cronican, chair of the board's Risk Committee, to chair the meeting for this item of business. Thank you, Phil.
Thank you, Scott. I'll start now with agenda item 2a, the resolution to re-elect Scott Perkins as a non-executive director. Scott retires by rotation at this meeting and offers himself for re-election. Before turning to questions, I'd like to invite Scott back to the podium to say a few words in relation to his re-election.
Thank you, Phil. Thank you, Phil. Ladies and gentlemen, and fellow shareholders, it is both a privilege and a responsibility to serve you as the Chair of Woolworths Group. Since I joined the board, I've been part of a team, alongside my fellow directors and our management team, that has been working hard to improve both the underlying health and the performance of Woolworths Group. We are focused on the long term. We've invested for the future and kept our customers and our teams at the center of what we do, knowing full well that these are the drivers of sustained investment outperformance. Matters of strategy, the composition of our portfolio, and the allocation of capital have been consistently in focus. These have called upon my experience as a corporate advisor and a company director in other places.
Despite the considerable challenges we have encountered along the way, I've never lost faith in the potential for this extraordinary company and the people who serve it. I am proud to be part of this team. We benefit from a tremendous legacy in terms of the strength of our brand, the depth of experience and the passion of our teams, our convenient network, and the trust and belief that we've earned with our customers. My job is to help ensure that this potential gets fulfilled for Woolworths Group and you, our shareholders. If I'm elected, I will continue to work hard to realize this potential for all of us. Thank you for your support.
Thank you. Thank you, Scott. I now invite any questions from shareholders on Resolution 2a. Are there any questions in the room?
Chair, I would like to introduce shareholder Natasha Lee.
Natasha, please go ahead.
Thank you. Yeah, firstly, yeah, I do support Scott's re-election. But my question and concern is, you talk a lot about the diversity and belonging in relation to the group in general. But whilst there is good gender diversity amongst the board members, there does not appear to be a reflection of the wider community in other forms of diversity. And I ask the board to be mindful of that and work harder to address those other deficiencies within the board makeup, and particularly cultural ethnic diversity, LGBTI, disability and indigenous membership of the board to better reflect the community. As you well know, that boards in general perform better or companies perform better when the board does reflect the general makeup of the community.
Thank you. Thanks, Natasha, and I think, I can speak on behalf of the board as saying we agree with the sentiments that you've articulated, that a board that is diverse and reflects the community, is, is a more effective one, and it is something that, as we look at board composition, we'll continue to keep at the front of our minds. So thank you. Are there any further questions in the room? If not, I'll turn to online. Are there any questions, online?
Chair, no online questions related to this item of business.
Okay, so if there's no online questions, then that concludes the discussion on Resolution 2a. So thank you, ladies and gentlemen. The proxies received for this resolution are now being shown on your screen, online or on the screens behind me. And as chair for this section of the meeting, I intend to vote all open proxies in favor of this item. Thank you. I'll now hand the meeting back over to Scott.
Thanks very much, Chair. Thank you. Thank you, Phil. I will now move to agenda item 2b, the resolution to elect Tracey Fellows as a non-executive director. Before turning to questions, I invite Tracey to say a few words in relation to her election.
Thank you. Good morning, shareholders. It's with great pleasure that I put myself forward today for election as a non-executive director of the Woolworths Group, a company that is much loved and trusted in the community. It is, and with an ambition to do so much more. It is a business that plays an important role in so many communities, with a team strongly driven by its purpose, "Creating better experiences together for a better tomorrow," a purpose that very much resonates with me. The evolution of the Woolworths Group to the business it is today reflects the changing and rising expectations of our customers and the importance of meeting their needs wherever they are, be it in store or digitally. My executive experience over the last 30 years has focused primarily on technology and living the challenges and opportunities that digital innovation has brought.
I've led multinational businesses both in Australia and overseas, including as the CEO of REA Group, the leading digital real estate platform. I believe this strong digital marketplace context is highly relevant to the Woolworths Group, so we continue to serve our customers in new and innovative ways. I feel fortunate to have the opportunity to work with such high-caliber directors on the board, each of whom have rich and diverse experiences, and a talented executive team under Brad's leadership. I can confirm I have adequate time and energy to devote to the Woolworths board, and I look forward to contributing with passion and energy to the company for the benefit of all our stakeholders. Thank you for supporting my election as a director today.
Thank you, Tracey. Thank you, Tracey. I now invite questions on Resolution 2b. Are there any questions in the room? If there are no more questions in the room, I turn to online questions.
Chair, no online questions related to this item of business.
That concludes the discussion on resolution 2b. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, and congratulations, Tracey. The proxy received for this resolution are now shown on your screen online or on the screen behind me. I intend to vote all the open proxies in favor of this item. I will now move to agenda item 2c, the resolution to elect Warwick Bray as a non-executive director. Before turning to the questions, I invite Warwick to say a few words in relation to his election. Warwick?
Thank you, Scott. It's a privilege to put myself forward today as a candidate for election as a non-executive director of Woolworths Group. Woolworths Group is an Australian icon, and it's been part of my life since I was a child, and I continue to be an enthusiastic consumer of its wide range of products. The group plays an important role in our Australian and New Zealand communities, providing over 24 million customers each week with essential goods, but also memorable moments of enjoyment and providing employment to over 200,000 team members. I've been deeply impressed by the business improvements led by Brad and his team since 2016. Now that I've been working with Woolworths for six months, I'm even more impressed by what's been achieved, particularly on operational excellence, continuous improvement, focus on the core business, the customer, the team, and the purpose.
I bring to the Woolworths Group experience in international telecommunications, technology, media, including customer and consumer strategy, which is relevant as the supermarket sector is going through an accelerating technology change. I can confirm that I have adequate time and considerable energy to bring to the Woolworths Group board role. Thank you for supporting my election.
Warwick. Thank you, Warwick. I now invite questions on Resolution 2c . Are there any questions in the room? If there are no questions in the room, I'll turn to online questions.
Chair, no online questions related to this item of business.
That concludes the discussion on Resolution 2c. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Congratulations, Warwick. The proxies received on this resolution are now shown on your screen, online or on the screen behind me. I intend to vote all open proxies in favor of this item. The next item of business is to consider the remuneration report, which is set out on pages 76-99 of the 2023 annual report. This is an advisory resolution that gives shareholders the opportunity to provide feedback on the Group's remuneration policies. The remuneration report sets out the details of the company's remuneration framework and the remuneration arrangements in place for the directors, managing director, CEO, and other key management personnel.
The FY 2023 STI scorecard outcomes benefited from a more stable operating environment, with strong sales growth and improvement in EBIT following a very challenging FY 2022 and material COVID-related costs. These metrics were offset by working capital days, which was below target due to intentional investment in inventory to secure supply and improve availability. Customer satisfaction was below target, with customer experience impacted by inflation and ongoing stock availability challenges. The initial FY 2023 STI scorecard calculated an outcome of 89.8% of target, which reflects each of these factors. The remuneration framework also includes a safety metric for injuries. It only relates to injuries and to near misses, as the board has not considered it appropriate to apply a formulaic weighting in advance on any human life. A fatality must be considered separately and with an understanding of all the circumstances.
As I mentioned in my address, we are awaiting the conclusion of regulatory investigations into these two tragic recent fatalities. Where the facts are still subject to investigation, we adopt a two-stage approach. We determined that the first stage adjustment of 10% reduction in the STI payments was appropriate. This resulted in an overall scorecard being reduced from 89.8%- 79.8% of target, 53% of maximum. This was informed by an independent review of how other companies have treated similar events. Importantly, unlike many other companies' responses-... This adjustment was not just made to some ELT members, it was applied to every ELT member. And furthermore, it was extended to the vast majority of Woolworths Group leaders. Approximately 9,000 team members had their STI reduced by 10%, sending a strong signal throughout the organization that safety is everyone's first priority.
I want to stress that this is the first stage of a two-stage process. The second stage will occur once investigations are complete. If warranted, further remuneration at reductions will be made and may be material. We have consulted widely and constructively with shareholders and proxy advisors. Four of the five proxy advisors, together with the majority of our shareholders, have supported the board's approach. However, some shareholders believe we should have changed our remuneration framework and made further preemptive adjustments before the investigations were concluded. As a result, we have seen a vote against the remuneration report in excess of 25% of those voting today. Your board does not agree with this approach. We believe a fully informed two-stage approach is appropriate.
We believe this initial adjustment is both broad and deep, and enables Woolworths Group to continue to drive improvement in underlying safety metrics, as well as appropriately reflecting the gravity of the fatalities. However, we acknowledge and will reflect on this feedback and consider whether in the future, adjustments to our remuneration framework are appropriate. I now open this matter for discussion. Why not?
Chair, I'd like to introduce Julieanne Mills from the Australian Shareholders Association.
Welcome, Julianne.
Thank you, Chair. First of all, I'd just like to congratulate you on not just a good financial result for 2023, but also a good result in regard to action on sustainability, your customer, and your heart. But we always bring this issue up at our pre-AGM meetings, and it's really around long-term incentives and why you only have a three-year timeframe. That's one part of the question. The other part of the question is quantum, and is it really appropriate to have the quantum that you have, and how do you make those decisions around quantum? I don't necessarily want to talk about...
I think putting the context around that, when your STI is 150% of your fixed remuneration and your long-term incentive is 170% of your fixed remuneration, the ultimate quantum becomes quite high. So-
Okay. Thank you. Thank you for a very, very reasonable question. So the first thing we do is that we do extensive benchmarking to ensure that our remuneration structure is not only appropriate given external benchmarks, but also works for Woolworths. Our job is to retain and motivate this fantastic group of people we've got here, and to really incentivize them for their discretionary effort. So we do that regularly, and that conclusion remains unchanged, that our we believe our remuneration framework and its structure is both consistent with benchmarks.
By and large, STI schemes are around about three years. Some are longer, especially in the banking environment, where there's a different regulatory framework that requires that approach. However, every year we take a fresh look at it, and I will, I can assure you that we will be looking at your question in terms of, of LTI tenure again this year. So thank you for the prompt.
Thank you, Chair.
Chair, I'd like to reintroduce Judy. Judy.
Thank you.
Thank you for this. My question is in regards to short-term incentive. With regards to safety, I understand that you are having a two-stage process in regards to fatalities, but what about with those physical aggression high-risk stores that you're investing in? How come that's not part of your short-term incentive? Would that be included in the safety part of it? That's the first part. And the second part of the question is, you're saying that you're number one in with all suppliers in getting good feedback. How come also that is not included alongside customer satisfaction?
Two very good questions. Thank you. So the first piece is that our severity metric in the safety STI has two major elements. Includes all incidents, first aid, modified work, lost time, and it also includes high potential incidents where there was either a near-miss or a minor event. The first three are event-based, and all impacts of that first category include both our team and the incidents you've referred to, and also our customers. The high potential events are the area which is more forward-looking, where we look at the events that have happened, we try and learn what might have gone wrong to really promote a learning culture alongside an accountability culture. So they're absolutely captured in our framework. Thank you very much.
... could that be, would you account that as a reduction as well? Would that be a part of it?
We would absolutely like to. We would like to reduce serious injuries over time, but we also want to promote the reporting and capture of the data. So we're trying to do two things, and that's why the severity metric captures all of that on the numerator, and on the denominator is all of the events added up. So we think we've got quite a good balance between event capture, ranking the more serious, also near misses, and then standing back as a board and considering fatalities a completely standalone item.
What about the supplier? You didn't-
Supplier, yes. Supplier. Good, thank you for reminding me. We'll take that on board. I think, well, Brad, you might wanna comment on that.
Well, we don't think we can succeed financially with having suppliers on board, so we feel that that's picked up in the financial metrics. We do monitor it externally, so it... As we just add in another metric to the overall list when I say we, we can't achieve our outcomes unless suppliers are engaging with us, giving us access to NPD, giving us good trading terms. So that, that's the reason, but-
That's the same with customers as well, and you included customer satisfaction there.
Yeah. The customer one is actually because we see that as a lead indicator. So if customers start being sadly, you can have a lead and lag with customers, whereas suppliers, we feel, is much more integrated into the P&L. But your point is well made. We're just giving you the sense of the logic.
Yeah, 'cause we can't- it comes a point where you add so many metrics into the STI, it's like confetti. You really need to actually have the, really the ones that matter. But that doesn't mean that other metrics aren't reported at the board and management don't get a prompt. You know, there's the appropriate discussion around performance around other metrics. And as I've explained to you, the Advantage Survey and our position is really, has been very strong.
Chair, I would like to introduce shareholder, Jo Wright.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I feel a bit nervous. I've never asked a question at an AGM before. Full disclosure, I am actually a shareholder and a team member. I missed the opportunity in general questions for this, but as this is to do with remuneration, I thought it was appropriate to ask it here. As a team member, my base rate pays $ 25.12 an hour, and my team bonus last year was a packet of Cadbury Favourites . I'm not a member of any union, but I do support a $ 29 base rate of pay. In our store, we have several team members who are working three jobs to make living wage.
Any increase in the base hourly rate for team members under the current EBA, which is under negotiation renewal, is only achievable for those who are skilled trade, supervisors, team leaders, or have clerical roles. Is it time for a merit-based remuneration existing alongside the current grade system, using the criteria that applies to executive team pay increases: performance, experience, length of service? My second question is: under the rules of this country, at 18 years of age, you're considered an adult. You can vote, join the army, drink alcohol. At Woolworths Supermarkets, you're not considered an adult until age 20. If an under 20 team member can be considered sufficiently adult to lead a team, why are they not entitled to adult pay? Isn't it time to remove this pay discrimination?
Thank you very much, shareholder. I hope you'd like to respond to...
Yes, so the first. Thank you. On the first, I mean, it's equal pay for equal jobs. And by the way, thank you for working at Woolworths. And so we've tried to be. I do understand your point on the differences, but actually it is quite important, just as the size of the team and how we deal with it, that we've tried to focus on equal pay for the equal role, as versus taking into account tenure and everything else which goes into, you know, whether you choose to take more senior roles or not at Woolworths. I think we can debate the merits of that approach, but that's the approach we've taken. I would like to hope that you are using your Everyday Rewards card with the extra components.
You get a lot of extra benefits, and I certainly hope that, and it's not our expectations, as it gets to Christmas and celebrating various events, that we don't do the right thing there. So if there are issues, we'd love to understand and correct that. I actually agree with you on the second item, can I say, and it's an item that we're talking about actively inside the business, which is how do we make sure that we do the right thing and how the definitions of what is a minor? So I think that's something that I know, Caryn, you could probably talk to more, but we don't disagree with your view, and it's something we're looking at, so.
We'll take that away, shareholder. Thank you for your question. If there are no more questions in the room, I'll now turn to online questions. Oh, sorry. Pardon.
Apologies.
Sure.
May I reintroduce Jonathan Taylor?
Thank you.
Thank you, Chair. I want to commend the board on their decision to reduce the remuneration because of the death. There is no way that this can be quantified, but it is good to see that you have done something that is financially detrimental to the senior team because of it. You know, we have moved on from an era when 17 men were killed building the Harbour Bridge, and be thankful for that. It is not a question, it's a comment, that I hope the same level of generosity is shown to the families and those who were injured at work.
Sir, can I, can I thank you? Thank you for your question, and I can assure you, having reviewed these matters personally myself, that I think Woolworths has been more than generous and respectful, given the circumstances of families of the, the contractor and employee involved. Thank you for your question. If there are no more questions in the room, I'll turn now to online questions.
Chair, no online questions related to this item of business.
That concludes the discussion on resolution 3. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. The proxies received for this resolution are now shown on your screen or online or behind me. A voting exclusion applies to this resolution, as set out in the notice of meeting. I intend to vote all open proxies in favor of this resolution. The next item of business is seeking shareholder approval for a grant of LTI to Mr. Brad Banducci as Managing Director and CEO in FY 2024. The proposed FY 2024 LTI grant to Brad is for a maximum of 111,199 performance share rights. I'd like to stress that Brad will only receive the maximum value of this award if our performance targets are exceeded over the three-year period to the financial year FY 2026.
Details of those performance hurdles and any other key items of the performance share rights, including a voting exclusion, which applies to this resolution, is set out in the notice of meeting. I now invite questions on resolution four. If there are no more questions in the room, I'll turn now to online questions.
Chair, no online questions related to this item of business.
That concludes the discussion on resolution 4. The proxies received for this resolution are now shown on your screen, online, or on the screen behind me. I intend to vote all open proxies in favor of this item. The next item of business is seeking shareholder approval for the approach to termination benefits. The law in Australia restricts the benefits that can be given without shareholder approval to team members who hold or have, have held within the previous three years a managerial or executive office, as defined in the Corporations Act, on cessation of their employment with the Woolworths Group Limited or its related bodies corporate. Under Section 200B of the Corporations Act, a company may only give a relevant team member a benefit and their connection with their ceasing to hold a managerial or executive office if it's approved by shareholders or if an exemption applies.
The Group's position in relation to grants of equity securities under the current or future Woolworths Group plan is to treat departing members, having considered the relevant circumstances in which the relevant team member is ceasing employment, and in accordance with the applicable laws, market practice, and group policy. To allow this policy to be achieved, the board has determined it's appropriate to seek shareholder approval of the approach and that it proposes to take to these benefits now in advance of any such potential benefits being provided. Approval of this approach was previously granted by shareholders at the 2020 AGM. I now invite questions on Resolution 5. Are there any questions in the room? If there are no questions in the room, I'll turn to online questions.
Chair, no online questions related to this item of business.
That concludes the discussion on resolution five. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. The proxies received for this resolution are now shown on your screen, online, or the screen behind me. I intend to vote all open proxies in favor of this item. The next item of business is seeking shareholder approval to grant non-executive director rights under the Australian Non-Executive Director Equity Plan and U.S. Non-Executive Director Equity Plan to enable eligible NEDs in office from time to time. Grants of the NED rights under the Australian NED Plan and the U.S. NED Plan were last approved by shareholders at the Group's 2021 annual general meeting. Whilst the approval of that meeting was for three years, approval is being sought again this year, one year earlier than would otherwise be necessary, so that all NEDs in office from time to time can participate in the NED plans.
There have been no changes to the terms of the NED plans since the 2021 annual general meeting. I now invite questions on Resolution 6. If there are no more questions in the room, I will turn now to online questions.
Chair, no online questions related to this item of business.
That concludes the discussion on Resolution 6. Thank you. The proxies received for this resolution are now shown on your screen, online, or on the screen behind me. I intend to vote all open proxies in favor of this item. Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes the formal items of business for today's meeting. I would like to remind shareholders who have not yet cast their votes on all resolutions to do so now. As mentioned earlier, the results of the AGM will be announced to the ASX later today and placed on the website. A full transcript, along with a webcast of the meeting, will also be available on the website. I now invite you all to join me, my fellow directors and senior management in the foyer outside for refreshments. Once again, thank you for participating in today's meeting and for your ongoing support.
I now declare the polls closed and the 2023 AGM of Woolworths Group completed. Thank you very much.