Welcome to Mercury's annual shareholders meeting for 2022. My name's Howard Thomas, and I'm Mercury's Company Secretary. A quick word on the lighting. We are set up for an online meeting, so if it looks like I'm or we're peering out at you, we are. Just please bear with us. This year marks our first hybrid meeting, so we're in-person and online, as we make it as easy as possible for our shareholders and guests to engage with us. It's an absolute pleasure to welcome many of you back in person this year, and I also extend that welcome to those of you who join us online. Health, safety, and wellbeing are very important to us, so I appreciate your attention as I quickly run through some housekeeping before we get to the main event this morning.
We run without intermission, so you'll be pleased to hear that the toilets are located out, next to VMAX number one, out to the right there, my right. In the unlikely event of an emergency, please follow the instructions of Event Cinemas staff who are in uniform or are wearing a high vis jacket. There are two emergency exits at the front of each VMAX cinema, one to the left and one to the right, and the main entrance to the complex can also be used in an emergency. There's a stairwell just there for that purpose. If you hear a continuous alarm or if you are directed, please make your way promptly to the exit indicated by those Event Cinemas staff, and they'll take you to an evacuation gathering point.
It's the green car park on level four or Broadway and Clovelly Road, which, depending on the situation. If you've got any mobility issues, please just speak out to a member of the Event Cinemas staff. Following today's meeting, we hope you'll join us for some refreshments and a late morning tea with your directors, management, and other members of this wonderful Mercury team. Now, we're gonna be in the boutique lounge, which is clearly marked from the main foyer. We really do welcome these opportunities to speak with our shareholders and friends in person. I can't promise chopped ups and popcorn this morning, but good conversation over a cuppa. Please join us there after the event.
Now, we're all about improving things at Mercury, so if you can think of ways that we can improve our shareholders meeting, please just let us know. For those of you here in person today, feedback forms were placed on your seats. There are spares if you need them. Just ask somebody from the Mercury team in yellow. Please leave your thoughts on that form. Polite, please. Either place them in the box near the exit on the way out, or leave it with any of the Mercury team here today. Now, for shareholders and proxy holders who have joined us online, a survey link will appear on the online platform. It's underneath the broadcast box near the end of the meeting. Now before handing over to our chair, I'll quickly outline a few procedural matters.
For online attendees, you can watch a live webcast of the meeting and read the company documents associated with the meeting. In addition, shareholders and proxies can ask questions and vote online. Now, for those of you who are here in person, we've got roving microphones available around the room, so if anyone wants to ask a question or speak, please raise your hand and a microphone will be brought to you. If you wouldn't mind stating your name and whether you are a shareholder or a proxy, that would be helpful. For those of you attending the meeting virtually, if you've got a question during the live meeting, please select the Q&A tab on the right-hand side of your screen at any time. Type your question into the field and press Send. That will immediately submit your question.
Should you require any assistance with that online platform, you can either type your query into the chat and one of the good people at Computershare will assist you. They will reply to your question online. Alternatively, if you just wanna speak to a person, call Computershare on 0800 650 034. Now, we do have a moderator here this morning, and they're gonna do their best to faithfully represent all of the questions asked online, and the moderator is not gonna change those questions except to correct any of those obvious errors that can occur in typing. However, if there are several questions on the same topic, these may be grouped together into one representative question so that our answers aren't duplicated.
Please note that while you can submit questions from now on if you are online, we won't address these until the relevant time in the meeting. Now, if we're not able to get through all of the questions this morning because of time, we will provide answers to those on our website, mercury.co.nz, and we'll also announce these to NZX and ASX. For both our in-person and online attendees, questions must be relevant to proceedings, please, and we ask that they are succinct and clear, so we can try and answer them in the same way. Now, voting today will be conducted by way of a poll on all items of business. In order to provide all online attendees with enough time to vote, the chair will shortly open the online voting for all resolutions.
At that time, if you are eligible to vote, you'll be able to cast your vote under the Vote tab. Once the voting is open, the resolutions and voting options will allow votes to be cast. To vote, simply select your voting direction from the options shown on the screen. Now, you can vote for all resolutions at once or you can vote resolution by resolution. That's up to you. You know your vote has been cast when the tick appears. Now you can change your vote, so simply select Change your Vote, and you can do that at any time until the chair declares voting closed this morning. The directors together hold undirected proxies as follows.
With respect to resolution one, that's the re-election of James Miller, 723,646 shares. With respect to resolution two, the election of Lorraine Witten as a Director, 761,363 shares. With respect to resolution three, that's the election of Susan Peterson as a Director, 761,363 shares. The directors do intend to vote all of those shares in favor of resolutions one, two, and three. The resolutions will now be open in the Vote tab. Please submit your votes at any time, and the Chair will warn you before she moves to close voting.
Voting instructions for shareholders here today who are entitled to vote, and for proxy holders who have discretion as to how they vote, will be provided when we get to that part of the meeting. It now leaves me to invite our Chair, Prue Flacks, to open our 2022 annual shareholders' meeting. Prue.
Thank you, Howard. Tēnā koutou katoa. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for joining us at this annual shareholders' meeting. My name is Prue Flacks, and I'm Chair of Mercury NZ. On behalf of your directors, the chief executive, the management team, and all of Mercury, I extend a very warm welcome to you all to this lovely venue for those of us who are here in person. I also extend a warm welcome to those of you online. It's great to have technology that enables as many of you as possible to participate. I am pleased to confirm we have a quorum represented here today, and therefore declare open the 2022 annual shareholders' meeting of Mercury NZ Limited. Voting at today's meeting will be both in person and by way of online poll.
Accordingly, in my capacity as Chair, I require that a poll be held for each of the resolutions. Voting is open on all items of business, and Howard's given you instructions on asking questions during this hybrid meeting, and also on how to cast votes. Outlining the agenda for today, firstly, I will introduce you to our board, all of whom are here beside me for this meeting. I'll make some brief comments on the past year and on the broader environment in which we're operating. Vince will then talk about business performance in more detail and the actions Mercury is taking to ensure we continue to thrive both now and into the future. In terms of formal business, we have three resolutions to put to the meeting.
These are resolutions for the re-election of one board member, James Miller, who retires by rotation and is eligible and available for re-election. For the election of two new directors, Lorraine Witten and Susan Peterson. I will outline the process for discussion and voting on the resolutions at that point in the agenda. After the resolutions are presented and voting is closed, we will take general questions from you relating to the company. Now for the introductions. We have Dennis Barnes, and if I could just ask you to wave. Hannah Hamling, Andy Lark, James Miller. James chairs our Risk Assurance and Audit Committee, and as I said, is seeking re-election today. Susan Peterson, who joined us in September and is seeking election. Scott St. John. Scott Chairs our People and Performance Committee. Patrick Strange, down next to Scott.
Mike Taitoko, and finally, Lorraine Witten, who also joined us this September and is also seeking election. Now, Andy Lark is retiring from the board at the conclusion of this meeting, and I would like to take this opportunity to thank Andy for a valued contribution to Mercury NZ over the last eight and a bit years. Andy works with many companies in Australia where he's based and further afield, which are leaders in the digital transformation which all businesses face today. Over the last eight years, Andy's generously shared his time and experiences, and Mercury NZ is the richer for his contribution. Andy, once again, thank you. Now, we also have Kim Gordon down beside Dennis Barnes. Kim is our fourth future director under the Institute of Directors Future Directors Programme.
Kim contributes to discussions and debates around the board table, but is not involved in board decision-making. Kim's tenure ends with us at the end of October, and I would like to extend my thanks to Kim on behalf of the board for the insights and experience she shared with us over her time at Mercury. In addition to directors, we are joined by Vince Hawksworth, our Chief Executive. William Meek, our Chief Financial Officer. Howard Thomas, the Company Secretary, who has already addressed you. We also have, in the audience, representatives of Ernst & Young, our auditors. Representatives from Chapman Tripp, our Legal Advisors, and members of Mercury's executive team. A special welcome to Fiona Smith, who is Mercury's GM Customer Operations, who's joined us following our acquisition of the Trustpower business.
I'll now move to some highlights of our financial performance over the past financial year. The board was pleased with the financial outcome for FY 2022, particularly given the challenges presented by low hydrology for most of the year and the unplanned outage at Kawerau. The results reflect the completion of two very significant transactions for the company. The acquisition of the New Zealand assets of Tilt Renewables and the acquisition of Trustpower's retail business. Integrating the assets acquired through these transactions into Mercury's existing business provides a strong platform for growth for the medium term. Our earnings or EBITDA for FY 2022 of NZD 581 million was NZD 118 million higher than the previous year. For the first time, this includes revenue from wind generation, both from our Turitea Wind Farm and from the operating assets acquired from Tilt.
Operational expenditure was also up as a consequence of these transactions. Net profit after tax was NZD 469 million, up NZD 328 million on the previous year, driven by the NZD 367 million net gain on sale of our shareholding in Tilt, which of course funded the acquisition of Tilt's New Zealand operations and future development options. The board was very pleased to announce a final ordinary dividend of NZD 0.12 per share, fully imputed. This lifted our total FY 2022 ordinary dividend to NZD 0.20 per share, which was the 14th year of increases to your ordinary dividend. Looking forward, our earnings guidance for FY 2023 has been set at NZD 580 million, or on a normalized basis, NZD 756 million.
Dividend guidance is set at NZD 0.218 per share, which represents a 9% increase on the previous year. Now, I just want to make a few comments on the external environment in which Mercury is operating. Climate change has become the dominant theme in our external environment. It's shaping much of our forward agenda and much of the forward agenda globally. Mercury supports the concept that all of us must play our part, meaning that we all take ownership of the challenge to reduce emissions within our control or influence. We can't excuse ourselves on the basis that we have no meaningful impact on global emissions. No single nation or organization can solve this in isolation. In New Zealand, the electricity sector is acutely aware of the role it needs to play in enabling decarbonization.
Electricity emissions are a very small portion of New Zealand's gross greenhouse gas emissions. I think about 6% of the total. Through supporting other sectors to decarbonize, we could contribute over 60% of the reductions required to achieve net zero. This is already happening. As a sector, we've committed over NZD 2 billion or four terawatt-hours of new generation between 2020 and 2025. Projects which are consented or under construction are able to cover estimated increases in demand through to 2030, and Mercury is providing about 30% of that contribution. We also know that successfully addressing climate change will require commitment and an openness to change. Collective action, collaboration with government and other sectors will be vital to success.
However, the transition to a lower carbon world is not without its challenges, and key amongst these is how we balance renewability against affordability and probably most importantly, reliability. This is a challenge faced not just in New Zealand, but around the world. New Zealand, relatively speaking, is in a much better position. But despite that, we must endeavor to strike the balance that provides the best outcome for New Zealanders overall. Firstly, reliability, which put simply means keeping the lights on. The amount of electricity generation coming from renewable sources is increasing. At the same time, we expect to see a greater portion of the economy relying on electricity. The higher the proportion of renewables in the system, the more challenging it becomes to maintain a secure and reliable supply.
Last year's outage on the ninth of August was a sharp reminder of the importance of maintaining a steady supply of power when the wind isn't blowing and the sun isn't shining. We at Mercury are contributing to a number of reviews currently looking at the challenge of reliability. One of these, and probably the foremost review, is the New Zealand Battery Project. It's vital that this project rigorously and transparently tests the full range of options against the government's default option of a multi-billion NZD pumped hydro scheme in the lower South Island. The analysis must also consider the impact of the preferred solution, whatever that may be, on the other legs of the trilemma, namely affordability and renewability. Turning to affordability.
Many New Zealanders say that cost of living and inflation are their biggest issues today, and the same applies in many other parts of the world. Electricity affordability remains an important focus for all of us, and we're watching the situation in Europe closely. But New Zealand is in a vastly different situation. Electricity price changes for residential customers remain below inflation and competition remains high. Nonetheless, we acknowledge the power bill is a big component of many household budgets, and Vince will speak to some of the measures that we are taking to help our customers through this period. However, the reality is that significant investment will be required to build the new renewable generation necessary to transition to a low-carbon economy, and it will be important to ensure that our market structure remains fit for purpose and regulatory settings do not disincentivize the necessary investment. Finally, renewability.
Our sector remains on track to reach more than 95% renewable generation in the next few years. There are, however, headwinds that potentially hinder our ability to build new plant as quickly as we'd like to. In particular, the reform of the Resource Management Act must recognize the role that renewable electricity plays in decarbonizing the rest of the economy. We continue to advocate for reform that does not inadvertently hinder the ability of generators like Mercury to continue to deliver more renewables into the system at the pace required. Supply chain issues, inflation, and access to skilled labor are also seeing project costs increase and must be factored in as we consider future investment opportunities.
As we lift our system to an even higher degree of renewability, the role of gas is increasingly important, and we welcome the development of a gas transition plan to work towards further reducing emissions while ensuring we keep the lights on and manage the price of energy. The next decade will be key for the transition, and given the complexity, coordinated action will be vital to individual effectiveness. In that regard, we're looking forward to the Boston Consulting Group's independent report that will bring together a whole of sector view on the best pathway to a low-carbon electricity system. There are undoubtedly significant challenges ahead as we act on climate change. However, there are also great opportunities for New Zealand, for our sector, and for our company.
We have a chance to shape a better future for the generations that come after us and at the same time, unlock sustainable growth for our business. The foundations of Mercury's business are strong, and I'm very optimistic for our future. Ngā mihi nui. Before I hand over to Vince, we have a short video which contains some words from our people. Thank you.
This past year has been a really amazing year for the customer business. We've done some really cool things. We've introduced new products, or we've introduced broadband for our customers. We've put in place a team called our Here to Help team, which is designed to support our most vulnerable customers, providing them the extra support, and care, and attention that they need. The Trustpower acquisition has been truly transformational. In the future, we wanna be able to bring the best that we can offer, both from a service point of view, electricity, gas, broadband, mobile, are all propositions that we know our customers value.
A few other things that we've been working on include People and Performance, and we've been working with them on agile mindset. We've been doing a lot in the retail space, so with the consolidation and the integration of the two brands coming together. It's not just about this or that, it's about what's best for the new organization and really looking to a brighter future. Taking part in the Emerging Leaders Program has certainly helped me with my confidence. Since being in the program, I've jumped into another role, which has been really, really cool. I'm a member of Te Ao Māori Team Mercury. One of the things that we want to do is help to encourage the use of te reo Māori within the company.
Cultural capability at Mercury is really important because Iwi Māori have a really long association with the land, and Mercury's business is such that we have taken an ultra long-term view of the way we operate in our respective operating areas. The landscape ahead of us is ever-changing. There's a lot of discussion happening around co-governance, decision-making, and all of the legislative reform ahead of us. Mercury can build on its proven track record of working in partnership with Iwi and Māori and stepping together into these exciting times ahead. Tiaakitanga is guardianship and protection and care. For us working at Mercury, we've been gifted generating assets that were developed by previous generations, and we are here to look after them, protect them, enhance them, so that they can be passed on to the next generation.
Over the last year, we've gone from a position of having no wind assets through to now being the largest wind generator in New Zealand. This includes the acquisition of the Tilt assets, as well as the construction of the Turitea Wind Farm. When you combine the new wind assets with the significant peaking capacity of our Waikato hydro assets and the strong baseline of our geothermal assets, we're now in a very strong position to support New Zealand's transition to a low-carbon economy.
Thank you, Chair. Kia ora koutou katoa. Welcome everybody to our AGM. Everybody in the room and everybody online. Having joined Mercury in the midst of COVID, I've now participated in two online AGMs. I have to say it's a real pleasure to finally be meeting many of you in person and for the first time. Welcome. You've heard Prue speak to the dynamic, rapidly changing world we find ourselves in. The same is true for Mercury. It's been a transformative year for our business. In the space of 12 months, we've gone from a company with no wind generation to New Zealand's largest wind generator. Over the same period, we've become New Zealand's biggest electricity retailer and a truly multiproduct retailer.
All of this puts us in a great position to thrive in a world where the pace of change is only increasing, a world where the ability to adapt and grow matters. To get here is the result of many hands, and I want to acknowledge our 1,300-strong team of dedicated individuals. The video you've just seen is a wonderful demonstration of some of the many special milestones our people have achieved over this year to support Mercury's ambitions. With this visual background, I'm gonna speak in a little bit more detail about some of the building blocks we have in place to deliver on our strategy, and therefore, where the energy of our people is focused now and into the future. When we think about creating value, we anchor our activity around our strategic framework to allow us to thrive today while also shaping tomorrow.
This framework maps what we need to focus on and guides our decision-making. In light of some of the key changes to our business, which we are discussing today, our framework is being reviewed to ensure we remain relevant in this rapidly changing world. As you can see on the screen, our business is growing. With the increased scale, it is important that we remain connected to the impact that we have on our communities and our customers. As New Zealand's biggest electricity retailer, we have an important role to play in helping our customers navigating some of the challenges that Prue spoke of earlier. We continue to evolve our approach to customer care, which is centered on compassion, connection, and care. We implemented a number of initiatives over the year aimed at delivering holistic and long-term solutions for customers needing extra support.
An example of this is the establishment of our here to Help team, a specialized group of individuals who are dedicated to working with customers in hardship, often in complex situations. While still a relatively new initiative, we are seeing positive results. Now, spot prices have remained elevated, and they're a well documented challenge for our sector. Forward wholesale prices indicate this will continue for some time due to the rising cost of thermal fuels, like gas and coal, and increasing carbon prices. This is particularly felt by our larger commercial and industrial customers, and we are seeing these customers signing longer-term contracts to help mitigate that price impact. We do also anticipate some flow-on impact for our residential customers. Next year, we'll see the further phasing out of the low fixed user tariffs, and while removing inherent unfairness in the tariff, the change will negatively impact some customers.
We have a number of mechanisms in place to help consumers through this change, including developing a sector-wide support package for customers who are struggling to pay as a result of the change. We anticipate this work to only continue to grow because for Mercury and New Zealand to make its way through the transition, we need to be equitable for all. During the year, we were charged by the Commerce Commission for incorrectly applying early termination fees for about 2,000 of our customers between 2016 and 2020. We are very disappointed to have let some of our customers down, and the remediation that we completed last year included apologizing to those affected. We have a continued focus on strong health and safety culture. It remains very important to us and is reflected in another year without any serious harm injuries.
Our total recordable incident frequency rate also continued to trend down to 0.6 during the year. However, we did experience an event during the commissioning of rebalancing work at our Rotokawa geothermal field. While there were no injuries, we notified WorkSafe of the incident and have been charged for breaches of health and safety legislation. We are cooperating with WorkSafe and are incorporating those findings as part of our focus on continuous improvement. Diversity and inclusion is a key area of focus for the business. If we are to continue to do our best work in an ever-changing environment, we need to ensure that we have future-proofed our pipeline of talent. We have had diversity and inclusion objectives for some time, but are not yet where we would like to be.
We have taken a number of actions this year to help to continue to build our diversity and inclusion goals. These include supporting employee network groups, forming strategic partnerships, building greater awareness internally, and ensuring our policies are modernized to support inclusivity. Underpinning all of the above is an unrelenting focus on building a continuous improvement mindset to help foster resilience and help our people and company to succeed in an uncertain future. During the year, we continued to progress our Thrive program, delivering initiatives that enhance performance across the business. We know that culture plays an important role in Mercury's ability to thrive into the future. We need a culture that is adaptive, resilient, collaborative, and improvement-focused. We undertook a significant amount of activity to position Mercury for the future.
We celebrated the completion of the Trustpower acquisition in May, and attention now shifts to the integration and bringing together of the two operating models. That includes our brand, our technology, our processes, and most importantly, our people. This acquisition has catapulted us into the multi-product space, allowing us to deliver even greater value for our wider customer base. Having a scale retail business is fundamental to our ability to continue to deliver innovative solutions for our customers. Over the same period, we completed the acquisition of the New Zealand operations of Tilt Renewables, including the future project pipeline. Our Tilt assets now contribute and the northern section of Turitea is operating. We are now New Zealand's biggest wind generator. Looking forward, we anticipate full completion of Turitea by mid-2023.
We also announced the next cab off the ranks earlier this month, with the construction of Stage 1 of Kaiwera Downs Wind Farm due to start in October, and that'll take about a year to build. We're really excited about this project, which will help continue to shift the dial towards an even more decarbonized New Zealand. The 43 MW wind farm will cost about NZD 115 million to build and lift our total commitment to new renewable generation to almost NZD 600 million since 2019. This is an important step in our ambition to deliver more renewable generation for New Zealand, but it is by no means our last step. We continue to work at pace to progress our wider generation pipeline.
During the year, we gained consent for the Kaiwaikawe Wind Farm, as well as progressed business cases for the Puketoi Wind Farm and the expansion of the Ngā Tamariki Geothermal Station. At the same time, we continue to focus on how we can reduce our overall emissions. One of the key areas of focus for us is addressing the emissions from our geothermal stations, which make up the bulk of our Scope 1 direct emissions. During the year, we piloted carbon reinjection technology at our Ngā Tamariki Geothermal Station. If successfully deployed to all units at the station, the gains are significant, avoiding about 30,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions per year. In our annual report, we talked about this being a year like no other. We have strengthened and expanded our retail business.
We are investing significantly in new and existing renewable generation, and we are engaged with and working constructively with stakeholders as Aotearoa navigates a period of substantial change. At the same time, our balance sheet remains strong, and we are confident that the actions we have taken future-proof our business and allow us to continue to deliver for our shareholders and New Zealand as a whole. I am tremendously proud of what our people have achieved over the years, from those that have been with us for 20, 30, or 40 years, through to our newest team members joining us from Tilt, Trustpower or beyond. "He aha te toa tei toa takitahi? E nara te toa takitini." My success is not mine alone. It is the success of the collective, our team. Thank you for your attention, ngā mihi nui.
Thank you, Vince. We now move on to the formal business of the day. Today's resolutions relate to director appointments, and all three resolutions will be presented before we pause for questions on those resolutions. There will, of course, be time for general questions after voting has closed. All three resolutions today relate to succession planning for the board. It is important that we effectively manage the transfer of institutional knowledge and experience, and that we look to the future as well as meeting current governance needs. The re-election of James Miller and the election of Lorraine Witten and Susan Peterson will facilitate effective transfer of knowledge and ensure continuity. Following Andy's retirement, and should the resolutions today be passed, the number of Mercury directors will increase from eight to nine. This is intended as a temporary increase only to allow a suitable period of overlap between directors.
I anticipate that the total number of directors will revert to eight, probably at the AGM in 2023. Mercury has a director fee pool, which is based on eight directors. The fees of the additional director will be met by a pro rata increase in the aggregate fee pool in accordance with NZX listing rules. As stated in the voting form, and as Howard mentioned earlier, all voting at today's meeting will be by way of poll. Accordingly, in my capacity as Chair, I require that a poll be held for each of the resolutions.
Shareholders in attendance in the room who are entitled to vote, and proxies who have discretion as to how they vote should either have the voting form that was sent with the notice of meeting or an alternative voting form given to them by Computershare when they registered upon arrival at the meeting. If you completed a postal vote, you don't need to complete another voting form. If you haven't received a voting form, please go to the computer desk outside this room where their representatives will be able to assist you. I'll invite you to vote after all the resolutions have been introduced to the meeting. Resolution one relates to the re-election of James Miller as a director.
James Miller was appointed a director of Mercury in May 2012, and he is Chair of the Risk Assurance and Audit Committee and is also a member of the Nominations Committee. James is Chair of NZX and Channel Infrastructure, and also a director of Vista Group International. He has specialist expertise in utility and economics and 15 years' experience in capital markets. The board recommends James to you as a Mercury director and unanimously supports his re-election. I invite James, being eligible for election, to address the meeting. James.
Thank you, Prue. Today, it's my turn to ask for your endorsement to seek a new mandate to achieve the aims and aspirations of our shareholders in the years ahead. Firstly, I'd like to give a quick recap of my career to date before secondly looking at my governance role on the Mercury board. As the youngest of five boys and a sister, I developed a tough spirit at a young age. I was born and raised on a farm outside Balclutha, and my early career was in Greymouth, Palmerston North, and Wellington before settling in Auckland. I'm a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants, Institute of Directors, and Institute of Finance Professionals. I hold a Bachelor of Commerce from University of Otago and a graduate of the Advanced Management Program of Harvard Business School. My commercial experience is well documented.
I'm an experienced commercial director with strong skills in the audit and risk function. As mentioned, my current board roles are Chair of the NZX and Channel Infrastructure and Director of both Mercury and Vista. Previously held positions are with Auckland International Airport, the Financial Markets Authority, and ACC. I'm currently Chair of the Audit and Risk Committee for Mercury. If I'm elected today, this will be my last term on the Mercury board.
I believe I've been able to make a positive difference to the big issues during my time on the board. Whether it was the IPO, divestment of International Geothermal, purchase of Tilt and Trustpower, and chairing the Audit Committee, I'm proud of Mercury's position in the market, as there's real chance not only to be the number one electricity retailer, but to roll out a generation portfolio to match this position. The board has delivered 14 years of progressive dividend growth, and I'm confident we have the potential to deliver 14 more years of dividend growth. I ask for your support and thank you.
Thank you, James. I now move as an ordinary resolution that James Miller be re-elected as a director. Voting will close at the conclusion of questions. Resolution two relates to the election of Lorraine Witten as a director. Lorraine is an experienced director and business leader with an extensive background in the telco, technology, and ICT sectors. Lorraine currently chairs Move Logistics Group and Rakon, and is an independent director of Pushpay Holdings. Lorraine has energy sector experience also, having been a director of Horizon Energy Group. The board recommends Lorraine Witten to you as a Mercury director and unanimously supports her election. I invite Lorraine, being eligible for election, to address the meeting. Lorraine.
Tēnā koutou katoa. Good morning, everyone. Ko Lorraine Witten tōku ingoa. Thanks for the introduction, Prue, and for the support from the board. Thank you also, shareholders, for considering me for appointment as a director of Mercury. If elected, I'll also serve on the Risk Assurance and Audit Committee. I consider myself to be a governance professional and strive for best practice around the board table and in our management. I'm a fellow of the Institute of Directors, have a Business Management degree majoring in Finance, and I'm a fellow of Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand. I believe that an organization is led from the top, especially in terms of business strategy, values and culture. The board must be robust leaders and collaborate well with our management.
I'm a business person and have over 20 years governance experience on a variety of boards: government, private, public, NZX and ASX listed. My experience is largely in high growth and high change environments, and my skills are in telecoms, technology, infrastructure, services and finance. I've had three careers. First as an executive, then as an entrepreneur, and now, in governance. My deep telecommunications experience is of particular relevance to Mercury. Over my career, I have developed a broad expertise in the telecommunications sector. I've been in the technology, infrastructure project delivery and retail. In my executive career, I ran what was then Telecom Mobile. Firstly, in the engineering and networks area and then the full business, including retail, marketing and customer revenue. Then in one of my entrepreneurial ventures, I owned and grew a full service telecommunications company, which was subsequently sold.
In my governance career, I've been on the board and chaired the Kordia Group, where I was instrumental in taking early leadership in cybersecurity. These skills are especially relevant with the recent acquisition by Mercury of Tilt and Trustpower and the size now of our retail business. Also relevant is my SaaS, Software as a Service, business experience in digital marketing, customer acquisition and service, as more and more of our customers are digital natives. I also have extensive experience in risk audit and health and safety. I've chaired over a dozen public and private company risk and audit committees. Most relevant to Mercury are Horizon Energy Group, Kordia, Move Logistics and the Risk Advisory Board for Department of Corrections. I recently retired from the Horizon Energy Board to make sure I have time to dedicate to this role.
I'm aware of the workload required, and I'm confident I can fully undertake these duties. I also remain open to adjusting my workload should this prove to be required. As an experienced director, I'm very clear that we directors are responsible to you, the shareholders, and that our job is to deliver a strong business and a good return on your investment. I also understand that as well as the strongly commercial nature of our business, we are owned 50% by the collective people of Aotearoa, New Zealand, our community, our neighbors. New Zealand is committed to mitigating climate change, and I respect highly the plans that Mercury has to take a leadership role in this journey, and I welcome the opportunity to contribute to this future serving in the governance of Mercury.
We have a challenging and exciting program to build more renewable generation and to manage the volatility of supply this change brings, and to support our community with energy security and freedom. As a country, we're also on a journey to grow and mature our partnership with tangata whenua. I was born in Kirikiriroa Hamilton, and grew up very near to the Waikato River, so it's part of my personal history. I acknowledge the iwi partners we as Mercury have along the river, around Taupō, and throughout Aotearoa, New Zealand. I look forward to understanding more about our joint roles in manaakitanga and kaitiakitanga. How we together preserve and care for the environment, the awa, the water, and sustain our resources for future generations.
Part of my personal business philosophy is allowing for diversity of thought, skills and experience, respecting the whole person, and providing a culture and environment where we as individuals can be our authentic selves and our very best. It's especially essential for our effective health and safety culture for all our people to be heard and engaged. In our business, it is also what will fuel innovation and creative solutions. From my induction, I've seen that Mercury has a focus on building this sort of culture, and I look forward to collaborating with management to foster these programs. My experience to date is that we have incredibly talented and committed people in Mercury, and I'm inspired by the mission and possibilities ahead of us. Thank you for considering me for a director for your company. It would be a privilege to serve with such a respected and capable team of people. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou katoa.
Thank you, Lorraine. I now move as an ordinary resolution that Lorraine Witten be elected as a director. Voting will close at the conclusion of questions. Resolution three relates to the election of Susan Peterson as a director. Susan is an experienced director and business leader. She currently chairs Vista Group, is an independent director of Xero, Arvida, Property for Industry, and Craigs Investment Partners. Susan is a lawyer whose professional career primarily involves several senior roles in the ANZ Bank Group. The board recommends Susan to you as a Mercury director and unanimously supports her election. I invite Susan, being eligible for election, to address the meeting. Susan.
Thanks, Prue. Kia ora koutou, and good morning to you all. Look, thank you very much for the opportunity to present my credentials for election as an independent director of Mercury. I've been a full-time director advisor and investor now for the last 9.5 years. As Prue said, my other listed company governance roles include chairing Vista Group, which is a global film distribution software company, and being a director of Xero, which is a global cloud-based software company for small to medium businesses. I'm also on the board of Arvida. We have a passionate purpose to transform the aging experience for more Kiwis. I'm a previous director of both ASB Bank and Trustpower, and I've also been on the board for not-for-profit Global Women now for the last 4 years.
I've recently concluded nine years as a member of the New Zealand Markets Disciplinary Tribunal. I should note that I end my tenure on as a director of Property for Industry after having served seven years on that board in December. Now, for me, it's still very much early days in terms of getting to know the team at Mercury, and I'm really excited to spend some time doing that. I'm not new to the sector, and I'm really excited about having the opportunity to be in a position to contribute. As our world heads into more challenging economic times, I am deeply respectful of our responsibility at Mercury to retain the trust of our customers and our wider community.
At the end of the day, we know that Mercury supplies critical infrastructure to our country and that many New Zealanders rely on us to ensure that their homes stay warm. I take these responsibilities extremely seriously. My experience in having served on the board of Trustpower for seven years mean that I'm familiar with some of the aspects and opportunities, including the challenges that are faced by the sector, and in particular, in relation to electricity generation and what it takes to be a successful bundled utility provider of both electricity, gas, broadband, and mobile telephone services. I'm also familiar with what it takes to support teams to grow their customer proposition through use of digital tools, apps, and AI.
In terms of a little bit about me, I guess now I'm a reasonably experienced business leader with a particular interest in helping purpose-driven companies drive growth through technology, innovation, and most importantly, organizational culture. I've worked with companies at all stages of their life cycle, startups, small businesses, large multinationals, fast-growing global technology companies, and most importantly, companies that have really struggled. All of these experiences are relevant when we look to ensure that Mercury continues to thrive. I'm also deeply committed to sustainability and decarbonization of our great country. I'm naturally really excited to be part of the Mercury team who's working hard to support New Zealand to achieve our carbon reduction goals. What do I bring to Mercury? First and foremost, I have a strong governance background and I am a reasonably experienced listed company director.
Being on the board of four other listed companies, those experiences from those other companies do provide some helpful context and perspective to the contributions we make around this table. Having spent nine years as a member of the NZ Markets Disciplinary Tribunal, it's given me a great insight into the ever-evolving, changing community expectations around the conduct of listed companies and how we retain trust. Second, I've had direct experience in the sector, as I said, with the previous role at Trustpower, and hopefully I'll be able to help assist the team from a governance perspective with a few opportunities, including the oversight of the integration of the retail business. In addition, I've also had a wide range of hands-on experience in a variety of relevant disciplines, digital technology, customer service, legal, banking, general commercial, risk management, and capital markets.
Finally, and really importantly, I intend to become a Mercury shareholder and so that like everyone in this room, my motivations are entirely aligned to yours in adding value to this company so we collectively deliver greater shareholder value. In summary, I am working with the Mercury team to realize the opportunities ahead really excites me, and I would very much appreciate the opportunity to serve on your board and to assist our team in working through the many opportunities that confront us as we grow this great company. Ngā mihi nui and thank you all.
Thank you, Susan. I now move as an ordinary resolution that Susan Peterson be elected as a director. Voting will close at the conclusion of questions. I'll pause now to allow some time for any questions to be asked on the resolutions for the election or reelection of directors. General questions will be addressed after voting has concluded. I think we'll take questions from the floor first. If you could put your hands up and try and attract the attention of one of our people in yellow, 'cause the lights make it difficult for me to see the hands. We have a question at the back.
Hello. Okay. I have a question about the carbon reinjection,
Uh, the-
With the geothermal-
We'll take questions, we'll take general questions after the voting on the resolutions is closed. We're just taking questions at the moment on the resolution to appoint the directors. We'll come back to you later on in the meeting if that's okay. Moderator, are there any questions online relating to the resolutions?
Chair, we have no questions online related to these resolutions.
Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes our discussion on the resolutions. For those in the room who wish to vote on these motions, please tick one box to select for, against or abstain alongside each resolution in the section marked on your voting form. If you hold a proxy on behalf of a shareholder, you will need to cast that shareholder's votes in order for them to be counted. Where there are undirected votes, proxy holders may vote these as they see fit by ticking the appropriate box. It's worth clarifying that all directed votes are treated as postal votes, and therefore proxies need not complete a voting form in respect of directed votes. Finally, in all cases, please ensure the voting form is signed. After voting, you should place your form in one of the ballot boxes which will be passed around the room.
If anyone is unsure how to complete the voting form or hasn't got a form, please go to the registration desk or just signal one of the people in yellow and someone will be able to help you. Once all the votes have been cast, they will be counted by the company's share registrar, Computershare. The results of today's meeting will be released to the NZX and the ASX on the completion of verification of voting. Please prepare your forms and cast your votes now. In a minute, I will close the voting system. Just make sure that you cast your votes on all resolutions. Voting is now closed. I'll now ask Computershare to collect the voting papers in the room.
At this point, we will open the meeting to questions of general business from the floor or which have been submitted during the course of the meeting. We'll take questions from the floor first, and we'll take the question from the gentleman up the back who has a question on geothermal reinjection, I believe.
Yeah, where is the carbon dioxide that's being reinjected coming from?
From the geothermal emissions. I'll ask Vince to give you a slightly more technical answer than that. Vince.
Yes. The geothermal fields inherently have carbon dioxide entrapped in the fluids that come out of the field. The fields produce both steam and hot fluid. Within that stream of steam and fluid, there is carbon dioxide entrapped in there. Previously, that carbon dioxide would've, which is part of what we call the non-condensable gases, would have escaped to the atmosphere. On one unit at the Ngā Tamariki Power Station on that field, we're capturing that fluid and reinjecting it into the field, and we're doing that through the reinjection wells that we have and also mixing at the same time as that goes in.
The reason it's a pilot and we're taking it one step at a time is we wanna make sure that as we reinject that into the system, that we don't affect both the wells or the stability of the field. We're sort of approaching a year into that at the moment, and everything looks really good. The data looks good. We're very pleased with that. At the end of that pilot, we'll make decisions about extending that to the other machines at Ngā Tamariki. We'll have to look at our other geothermal fields because the chemistry in each of those fields is different.
It's natural.
It's natural.
Absolutely natural. Yep.
Sulfur? Are you removing sulfur as well?
No.
Okay. Thanks.
Thank you for the question. Do we have other questions from the floor?
Kia ora. My name is Peter Mussburger, Shareholder. I have two questions. Is the board aware of the startup of Toast Electric in Wellington?
Do you want to put both your questions?
No, perhaps you just answer that first.
Yes, the board is aware of the startup of Toast Electric in Wellington. Yes.
Thank you. Is Mercury the wholesaler for that startup?
I don't know the answer to that question. Vince, do you know the answer to that question?
I don't believe so.
No.
We are the wholesaler.
Many other ones.
Many other brands.
Yes
That have started up, but I don't believe that we are the wholesaler to Toast. They're at very, very early stages of their. They haven't been to see us, as far as I'm aware.
Thank you.
Good morning. I am Sivaswamy, shareholder. I also have two questions. I'll just tell them briefly. The first one is, there was mention about Boston Consulting Group. Could you please tell us something about what we are consulting with them on, what are the terms and what would be the benefit to the company, and what is the due date for the report and something like that?
The second is, of late, last few years, there has been some more talks about earthquakes happening and the increased frequency likely in New Zealand, and a lot of households are being cautioned about the location, increase in insurance and all those things. So of course. I just wanted to know, for the company as such, since we, you know, gone into wind farms and all that, what would be the implication and how the company is going to manage that risk, and especially in operating assets, maintenance and revenues. Thank you.
Thank you. I'll answer the question about the Boston Consulting Group work first, and then we can talk about earthquakes. Maybe at that point, I might ask William or Vince to just give a bit more detail about the company's risk management, because clearly we have an extensive risk management framework, which certainly considers seismic risks to our assets. The Boston Consulting Group report that I referred to is a report that's been commissioned to provide an independent whole of sector view on the most effective pathway to a low carbon economy for New Zealand.
It's work that a number of industry participants have commissioned and have contributed to, but it will be an independent report from the Boston Consulting Group. It's intended to ensure that all relevant information to the transition to a decarbonized economy is clearly understood. The report is currently nearing finalization. Well, I know that it will be publicly released, and my understanding is that that will happen later in October. We believe it will be a very useful contribution to this really important topic. We've certainly contributed to it, as have many others in the sector. Contributed data to it, I mean. Does that answer those questions? Seismic risks. Who wants to take that one?
Thank you, Chair. I might start, and then I'll just pass to William to talk a little bit about some of the mitigations that we take. Clearly, as we all understand, New Zealand's seismically challenged. You know, earthquakes are a reality. For our hydro stations on the Waikato River, we have significant monitoring, and we operate those within a dam safety framework that is both globally and New Zealand recognized. We're very conscious of that. We have quite an extensive dam safety team, and we take external advice on each of those installations. Clearly, they've been built over many years and standards change and also understanding of the seismic risk changes, and we're very conscious of that.
With respect to the geothermal, they're also in the central North Island, and we know that's seismically active. Again, we monitor very carefully. If there is an earthquake type of event, we all get to know very quickly because we know what's been picked up at which of our power stations. Whether there's been an effect to the power station due to the vibration frequencies that might come from the event. I don't think we regard wind technology as being any more risky than those two. The wind farms in many ways are probably, unless it's a major event on a particular wind farm, probably don't have the same outcome that a risk to the Waikato River stations would have. I'll pass to William Meek to talk a bit about insurance and other things that we do.
Yeah. Thank you, Vince. We do have a very large insurance policy. It's probably one of the larger ones in New Zealand, so it's a combined limit of NZD 1 billion. In the event that you did suffer a large natural peril for our hydro assets, that would be seismic or flood, which causes significant damage. Certainly that NZD 1 billion would reinstate quite a few of those assets. In the event of a super volcano, Lake Taupō, some may have seen that GNS just increased the level to 1 from 0 just recently. Lake Taupō actually was formed as a result of a volcanic eruption around 2000 years ago. It is active, has seismic volcanic activity on the lake bed.
The risk does remain. Certainly our assets are really robust. Lots of steel, lots of concrete. The events we're talking about would be a huge natural disaster, not just for this company, but certainly for those living in the central North Island also. We're very active in terms of managing those risks and covering those risks with insurance.
Thanks, William. Do we have other questions on the floor?
Neville Tilsley, shareholder. I thought it was terrific, and I'd like to highlight that Prue, as our Chair, started this meeting with a call for each of us to do what we can, no matter how insignificant it might seem, to in the renewable area and for emissions and for the wellbeing of the planet. I'd like to congratulate you, thank you, and endorse everything that you said. It was a personal major disappointment that our government between 2009 and 2017 frequently gave our lack of meaningful size as a major reason for not showing leadership in this area. Our newly proclaimed king was widely derided and lampooned for what now is being hailed as forward-thinking and prescient views.
It was commonplace at AGMs for shareholders to join directors in ridiculing and dismissing calls for more action, and I hasten to add, not at Mercury or Mighty River Power meetings. Our community leaders, I think, have a big responsibility in guiding, encouraging, and informing the attitudes and actions of all of us. As leaders in the business community, it's very heartening that this board sets a great example and puts out the call the board chair did for each of us to do what we can. Without meaning to sound grandiose, on behalf of our children, our grandchildren, and future generations, thank you to you all.
Thank you. Thank you for those comments. Look, I can assure you that as an industry, we are very engaged and very focused on how we can constructively participate in the transition and in the decisions leading up to the transition. It's something that occupies a lot of our time at the moment.
Michael Bowden, shareholder. Can you tell us who your stakeholders are and in what capacity they are stakeholders
Well, we refer to people who have an interest in our company generically as stakeholders. That includes our people, our customers. We tend to call our shareholders or our owners rather than stakeholders. Our iwi partners, we tend to call our partners rather than stakeholders. We regard the community as one of our stakeholders. It's part of ensuring that we don't just consider financial outcomes when we consider the wellbeing of Mercury as a company. We consider the wider impact that we have and the wider responsibility we have. That's why we refer to different groupings of people as stakeholders, because they are people who generically have a stake, if you like, in our company doing well.
Paul Ford, shareholder. You referred to the New Zealand Battery Project in relation to the pumped electricity proposal for the South Island. Is it envisaged that the batteries that will be used as part of the final development be lithium batteries, or will there be consideration given to the new developments of non-lithium batteries?
The New Zealand Battery Project is a project that the government, the New Zealand government is undertaking, to consider the options for ensuring, security of supply in a dry year. That title is more of a generic title, and it's not just referring to batteries literally, because one of the main options that is being considered is, in fact, a very large pumped hydro scheme, down at Lake Onslow.
It's referring to storage options generally, because the reality is when you have the more renewable generation you have in the electricity system, so when we gradually phase away from fossil fuels, you have to be able to deal with the situations where your renewable fuel isn't available for whatever reason, and commonly it's referred to as dry year, but it's not just dry year at the moment 'cause clearly we now have wind. And so, you know, but the wind doesn't always blow, and the sun's not always shining. As you move to a greater proportion of renewable generation in the system, you have to have a mechanism for ensuring that the lights stay on when your renewable fuel isn't available.
It's different forms of storage, and that could be batteries, lithium batteries, and new technologies, but primarily for the storage over a three-month period, it's been hydro storage. Again, that's my non-technical summary. I'll just ask Vince if you wanna add anything to that very non-technical summary, which I think is broadly accurate, but.
No, it's very, very accurate. Thanks, Chair. I think the other point that was inherent in that question regarding, yeah, large scale static batteries. Globally, lithium-ion has been the go-to technology because of its storage capacity. Clearly, that has created an upswing in price of lithium, and there are, you know, sort of global concerns about its availability and the way it's extracted. There are other technologies being developed. To date, those haven't quite got to the levels of reliability and that is probably needed for large scale storage. I'm aware of trials of that technology. However, at this stage, we're just keeping a watching brief ourselves on technology in the battery space.
Thanks, Vince. I feel we should move to take some questions if we've received them online to ensure everybody is able to participate. Moderator, are there questions online?
Yes, Chair, there are a number of questions online. The first one here is from shareholder Coleman, who asks, "Does Mercury have any plans to introduce peer-to-peer trading between Mercury customers, such as PV surplus and/or to support multiple trading relationships?
I think the answer to that is no, we don't currently.
That's correct, Chair. The Trustpower brand has done some trials in that space. However, we're not expecting to expand on that in the near future.
Thank you.
Thank you. We have another one here from shareholder Shih, who says, "I am both a shareholder and customer of Mercury. There have been quite a few energy competitors who offer good incentives packages over the past year. I see advertisements from competitors in the market encouraging customers to switch, and I am personally attracted to switch. Are you considering adjusting marketing strategies and incentives to keep customers at this stage?
Yes is the answer to that. As Vince talked to and you also saw some comments from Craig Neustroski on the short video, one of the key drivers behind the acquisition of the Trustpower retail business was to give us access, give Mercury access to the multi-product bundle offers that are very popular with a number of customers. So that was one of the drivers. The other one was that, as we said, we are now the biggest retailer, and the reality is economies of scale are important as you look to evolve your customer business and provide even greater options and benefits to customers in the future. The retail market, electricity market in New Zealand is very competitive, and we certainly intend to be a big part of that competition. We are now, but obviously as with the Trustpower brand as well, that will just increase our competitiveness.
Thank you. We have another question here from shareholder Neil Mark, who asks: With the rising cost of living, is there any thought or consideration for power discounts for shareholders into the future?
We haven't considered power discounts for shareholders, but we are very conscious of the cost of living. As I said in my earlier comments, we are very conscious that the electricity bill is a big component of many household budgets. What we have done is we have ensured that we have good options available for customers who are experiencing difficulties with their bills. We have a customer care hub on our website. We have a number of payment options, and we ensure that our staff who are involved in talking to those customers listen to the customers, understand what the needs are, and understand what the options are for us to help them in any periods of difficulty.
Thank you. We have one final question online from shareholder Roger Francis Morgan. Also asking about the topic of PV. Does the Mercury have any specific plans to incentivize installation of private PV solar or wind generation by improving buyback rates, terms, and conditions to become more in line with those offered overseas?
Again, no, we don't, unless Vince is gonna contradict me. I should say if we do, the board doesn't know about them. I don't actually think that that's necessarily supported by the government. Yeah, we don't have plans to offer discounted rates.
Thank you, Chair. We have no further questions online.
Thank you. Are there any further questions in the room? We've probably got time for one more question, and then we do want to allow sufficient time to engage with people outside.
Hi. I'm Derek Clan, shareholder, stakeholder, AKA customer. I would like to ask the board to reconsider removing the discounts that are given for prompt payment. I would like to know what is the motivation for removing this discount. Thanks.
Thank you for the question. I mean, the short answer is we have been required to remove the discount. That was one of the recommendations from the Electricity Price Review that the government instituted in 2018. I think so, retailers have been required to remove the prompt payment discounts. I'll just ask Vince to just talk a little bit about how we've responded to that. I mean, there was a legitimate reason for the government making that request, which was that it didn't necessarily result in fair treatment between customers. Vince, do you wanna just add something to that?
Yes. Well, as the Chair said, it was a requirement. The way we have approached that is to remove the discount but reduce the price accordingly. Of course, it was those people least able to pay who missed their discount most often, and that was a concern of the government. We've gone through that process, but we are acutely aware all of the time that we've got to compete. It's a very competitive market, so we're reviewing pricing all of the time. Obviously want to think a lot about how we can engender loyalty from customers in different ways, without that particular tool.
I, um-
Mm-hmm.
Can I reply to that?
Yes, of course.
I think that government's response is punitive to those who can afford to pay. Not really can afford to pay, but could control their expenses. What is Mercury's response? Because effectively, that's a price increase of about 10%, plus you had a recent price increase of the daily charge being put up as well for the low users. Effectively, the price increase over the last or two or three months or that discount going to be removed in October, I believe. Effectively, that would be a price increase of about 20% for us, the low users.
It actually hasn't worked like that. Again, the low user tariff is something that the government decided to phase out because in fact, some of the households that are the most financially vulnerable actually couldn't take advantage of the low user tariff because they actually are quite high users of electricity and often that's because of lack of insulation and things like that. The way we have approached this, it's not just add-on price increases. Rates have been adjusted, and I might just get Vince to actually give you a bit more detail. We do. We carefully consider price increases to residential customers every year. We take account of economic circumstances. These are not decisions taken lightly. It's not correct to say that both those two things have involved increases to rates, because rates overall have been adjusted. Vince, do you just wanna provide the specifics on that?
Yeah. I've talked to the prompt payment discount. With the low user fixed charge requirement to renew that, yes, that has resulted in daily rates or the fixed charge part of the bill going up. However, the variable part of the bill, the charge per kilowatt hour, has gone down. The increase in our residential tariffs over the past year has been in the region of 3%-5%, so less than inflation. Having said all of that, some customers are more affected than others. As the chair said, if you were a large family who previously was not on the low user fixed charge because of the number of people in the household, you've seen some benefit out of this.
I have to acknowledge, and it's absolutely true that, if you were a single person or, perhaps a couple who were already benefiting from the low user fixed charge because you're not using much electricity and for all sorts of reasons, you may be better insulated, you may be more careful, you may be choosing things differently, that has resulted in an increase compared with that other family. However, the direction of travel with fixed, low user fixed charges is very clear instruction through the government and the regulator.
Thanks, Vince.
I know the price increase hasn't benefited me, but it benefited Mercury by 20%. I would like to ask the board to reconsider the pricing for the low users, please.
Yeah. I think it probably I can't see you, so I really apologize for that. It would be great if you could just come have a chat with myself and Craig Neustroski, who will stand up as we leave and wave from down just here. We'll just work through that with you because you know, well, I'd be interested to understand that change.
Thank you. Thank you, everybody who has asked questions both in the room and online. It is. We do like hearing your questions, and we never know which questions we're going to be asked from year- to- year, and they're always really relevant questions. Thank you all for your engagement and for your attention. As I say, we value the opportunity to meet you and to talk to you, and we look forward to having the opportunity, after two years online, to actually have a cup of coffee with you at the end of the meeting.
I would like to conclude by acknowledging the people of Mercury, our partners, including iwi and Māori land trusts, as well as our customers and the other stakeholders who we've talked about who contribute to the company that Mercury is. That brings us to the end of Mercury's 2022 annual shareholders meeting. I wish you all well, and I declare this meeting closed.