The AGM of Telstra Group Limited was held on Tuesday 15 October 2024 in the Grand Ballroom, Mezzanine Level of the Hyatt Regency, 161 Sussex Street, Sydney.
Recording of 2024 AGM held on Tuesday 15 October 2024 in the Grand Ballroom, Mezzanine Level of the Hyatt Regency, 161 Sussex Street, Sydney.
Nathan Burley: Good morning, shareholders. I am Nathan Burley, Head of Investor Relations and it is my pleasure to be your MC today for our 2024 Annual General Meeting. Before we officially start proceedings, I would like to welcome to the stage, Aunty Margret Campbell.
[Clapping sticks]
Aunty Margret Campbell: [Spoken in Indigenous language]. It means hello, or good day, or good morning, or good afternoon. Very diverse local languages. [Spoken in Indigenous language] is welcome. Welcome to the land of the Gadigal People. The Gadigal People is one of 29 clans that still hold all the information, the intelligence, that has been handed down from our ancestors of the past. That’s why we acknowledge them.
I’m actually sending in this little behaviour - you’re probably wondering, why the hell is she hitting two little pieces of sticks together? It’s because it comes from a tree and when you are born into landscape like Gadigal Country, you’re holding the intelligence of the [spoken in Indigenous language], that you’ve rebranded as trees. There’s a whole lot of them. On the right-hand and the left-hand side of our fingertips.
So when we’re actually harvesting these from the landscape for those children who will live on in that generational handing down of this information. We always pay our respect and acknowledge our ancestors. Our spirit. We don’t do prayer. This is one of the ways that we will do it, us women. As a 75-year-old, I’m holding what is regarded as knowledge and intelligence from our ancestors, the [spoken in Indigenous language], the tree population.
All the knowledge that gives us seasons. Seasons. Even the tone and the sound, the radar, the sonar. When you are gifted these as a child born into that landscape, you will proceed along your lifetime to hold all that ancestors’ intelligence from each of those trees. The biodiversity where it’s habituating in. Huge knowledge. So when we acknowledge our ancestors from the past we’re talking about how we give thanks and gratitude to those Elders, ancestors spirits, the [spoken in Indigenous language], custodians who hold the [spoken in Indigenous language].
Basically, when that Milky Way exploded of the first shedding, and all the thousands of trees diversities, all the waterways diversities, all the wind diversities, all the lightning what has been rebranded worldwide to other civilisations. I said, it’s easy if you just call it weather and climate. It’s easier. For us, it’s the ancestors that speak in their language.
That’s why when we are out on Country taking the littlun’s with their first set of sticks, we’re teaching them the real world of that. In contrast to our virtual monarchy, virtual Camelot that’s here. We can’t understand that. So, in welcoming you, I wanted to give you an understanding of why it is that we still practice this very basic prayer level when we say, thank you, Elders from the past. We acknowledge our custodians, our [spoken in Indigenous language], who gifted us all this in that whole ceremonial area.
Which is why we do circle ceremonies. You’ll see it in art everywhere. That’s basically where the Milky Way is giving us the story and the ceremonies. Do you know - ma’am, what’s your name?
Company Secretary: Sue.
Aunty Margret Campbell: Sue, can I get you to put your right hand - when you’re seeing rock art, whether it’s in the red, white, or yellow artistic representation in the landscape, in that, art is a signature, Sue. In the middle of all of that, you’ve got that Milky Way pattern. I think you might have rebranded it as fingerprints worldwide.
We’re holding - thank you very much - we’re holding that when we’re putting that art image in the landscape where Country is calling out, I’m holding all this because I’m birthing all these and what lives in that? Usually a bird. So a child will get all this intelligence, ancestors’ intelligence, our version of AI, because we can see it. It’s real in our world. When we’re teaching this story to our young children.
So I want to welcome you to the multitude diversity of stories in each landscape. The landscape is surrounded by beautiful - all the water whirl that comes down. I was saying to one of your staffers earlier on, the [unclear] Clan up there is all the white cloud. You’ll see that again in smoking ceremonies, that we harvest resources from based on the custodianship of a child saying, well I can harvest this, or, I can’t harvest this.
So we’re teaching those stories. Welcoming you to these stories is very, very profound for me as an Elder because we’re not getting a chance to teach this in the schools enough. Acknowledging our Elders, like me, and I’m one of thousands of Elders who have been schooled in this story. Many of our Elders are going off to a dreamtime too quickly.
So we acknowledge and pay our respect to all those Elders who are passing on this knowledge to our next generations, our children. We can’t get enough of them because they are going off. I’ve got a little bit of a heavy heart, our Elders are going too early and our efforts to be able to protect them here in our aged-care areas is very, very profound for us.
We’re actually having lots of challenges in that. I may come back to the Telstra Foundation on that later on et cetera, et cetera, and have a bit of a conversation with you about that. We pay and acknowledge our respect to our Elders past and present. Those on the shoulders that we’ve stood on that have made sure Elders like me receive this as it’s been passed down in accordance when these trees are shedding 72 seasons.
Seventy-two seasons. Seventy-two Australians inheritance. All this knowledge. They are colour-coded in 72 primary colours so that we can see these stories when we are walking out on Country. So in acknowledging and paying my respect to them, this is how we pay our gratitude to this knowledge and stories that have been handed down to us that we can physically see in each environment here in the land of Gadigal People.
How can we tell this is Gadigal? Because there’s a big waterway, it’s called Burramattagal River. We put a spirit circle around that, geographically. Basically, 25/30 kilometres each direction. The reason circle; because we don’t get a square or an oblong coming up in the sky every day to tell us that’s the story. It’s been rebranded [unclear] as a sun and the moon, the first lights. Extraordinary stories.
So in acknowledging all our ancestors who have gifted us all this intelligence for us mere simple human beings, First Nations here in Eora Country, that is the language of the Eora People. That big saltwater river houses still little freshwater creeks running into it. That’s how [family one, kinship family one] connections are all along their particular sections of those freshwater ways.
That’s why we acknowledge the big water systems where Aboriginal, and Torres Strait Islander People are still residing today. We’re all even little images like my little circles here. They’re embedded all along those river systems where these are still habituating. So it’s all in place in terms of what we’re holding.
On your right-hand side, which is my right-hand side, we’ve got all our ancestors of the past and our great, great human families grandfathers level who bestowed that knowledge. On the left side, we’ve got our women’s side, our ancestors’ women, and we call them the [unclear] trees. We call them the [unclear] winds, we call them the [unclear] lightnings.
They’re all those, male and female, ancestors spirits that are there in the landscape. Both sky and waterways [unclear]. When Aboriginal People from Gadigal Country and the Eora Country, they’ll say, we are the Salt Water People. Because, right, magically, spiritually, when you travel along the big saltwater rivers up towards a place called Parramatta, it’s where the magic freshwater.
Sue, do you know what colour water is? Not a trick question ma’am.
[Laughter]
Sue: I’m from Melbourne, the Yarra’s brown.
Aunty Margret Campbell: Where does it come from? It’s out there ceremonial today. You’ll call it clouds and you won’t get water, Sue, until it - can I get you to put your fist up here? It’s got to go to my colour, folks, to get water. It won’t happen otherwise, that intelligence, won’t happen. You’ve got 97% of the same ingredient and so have I, but see you’ve got the beautiful white, [ochre] cloud colours. Which is the first ingredient on what is weather.
All those sequencing of intelligence for us is there in environment. Australians, fellow Australians, thank you. This is our inheritance. The knowledge is extraordinary, so we acknowledge and pay our respect to all those. We acknowledge that they are the Salt Water People. The freshwater up the mountains area. Different language, Dharug People.
So when we’re talking about, we hold salt water. We’re saying, yes, we embrace you in us because we know you are in us. So those aspects of this welcome to Country, I wanted you to get an idea why it is that we do these. Because we can’t go to any of our churches. Where all these have been dismantled, we don’t have that opportunity to do that. Where we go to these places, and I’m very happy when I see some of the footage, that Telstra is so respectful when they go out and lay all this.
You’re actually mindful now where these cablings are being laid. Because all the sacred teachings are there in terms of the places of significance. So in acknowledging Aboriginal People today, the Elders past and present, I want to acknowledge those existing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People who may very well be a part of the Telstra Team already.
We pay our respect to them because when they enter your realm of world and workplace, it’s almost quite different. So I pay my respect and give you gratitude for what you’re doing for those Elders, those existing Aboriginal People who are in your workplace still holding all of this custodianship responsibility.
Of course, finally, emerging custodians, I can see the Telstra brand everywhere, and it’s wonderful to see how all of this authenticity is coming through, even in the marketing things that I’m watching this morning. I pay my respect to that because you are the emerging custodians. Aboriginal People here in Gadigal Country are the Freshwater People and Saltwater People. We are the sunrise people. We are the [unclear] People. The [unclear] People.
So we will talk about that because that’s our skin names and that’s our Aboriginal identity. You’ll notice, we’re talking about the environmental identity because that’s the spirit intelligence that we speak about. We invite you, fellow people, to become part of this custodianship because it is your [belongism]. It’s as much as our belongism.
We’ve been holding on to this knowledge for generations and generations under the most extraordinary circumstances. Especially when you don’t have a voice in a Government legislation, it’s even more challenging. So we pay our respect to you. We invite you, fellow Australians, at all levels, to take on this journey with us of custodianship of the belongingism that’s embedded deeply in not just the waterways, the sky world, and also the land world.
It's yours. We invite you to walk the journey with us. Let our voices grow and be stronger as the Elders and we welcome you to Country on the context of all those stories. If you’re lucky enough to be in Sydney you will also inherit the big whale dreaming. Because those whales who danced their stories into the world, what we call the first shedding up there, the Milky Way. The whales were a part of all our stories too.
So welcome people. May our ancestors hear our talk this morning. May they look at us. May they stand by us, and I ask them to guide you [unclear] because you are holding each of their ancestry intelligence in each of your fingerprints. That’s why we do all this circle stuff on our customs and ceremonies.
I want to thank you very much, Lizzie, wherever you are. Thank you very much for inviting me, again. I always enjoy giving you a little bit of a cultural awareness because I wanted you to know how Aboriginal Australians are still feeling very, very proud of the way that we do our prayer level. Of course, this is just a very basic level of how we acknowledge people to the land of Gadigal People today in the Eora Country. We’re still holding these stories, so thank you very much fellow Board of Directors.
Thank you, Sue, for being my helper today. I hope I didn’t embarrass you. Thank you very much. Thank you.
[Applause]
Nathan Burley: Thank you, Aunty Margret for joining us this morning and for that welcome. So welcome to everyone here in the Grand Ballroom. It’s great to see so many shareholders here today. I’d also like to welcome everyone who is viewing the live webcast online from wherever you may be located. There are few procedural and housekeeping matters to run through before we get underway.
For those in the room, we will be serving a light lunch at around 12:00 noon, however, if the AGM has not finished by that time, we will not be adjourning for lunch. You will also have been given a card when you registered this morning. Yellow cards are for shareholders who may speak and vote. Blue cards are for shareholders who may speak but not vote. You will need your card to ask a question or to re-enter the meeting.
A slide is going up behind me which explains how to vote. If you have any queries about how to vote, please speak to one of our team members in the room or in the shareholder registration area outside, who will be happy to assist you. The procedure on how to ask a question here in the room is now being shown on the screen. Shareholders who are viewing the webcast and wish to submit a question online, please click the, ask a question, button, and follow the prompts.
In terms of how we’ll manage the questions today, for each question session we will rotate between taking questions from online and in the room. We may have quite a few questions to get through, so we ask shareholders to please be patient. We will start with online questions as this will allow shareholders in the room to move to a microphone. I’ll read the online questions to the Chair as they have been written by shareholders.
If we can’t answer your question fully, or we can’t get through all the questions today, we’ll respond to any unanswered questions after the meeting. Either directly or through the questions to common answered questions on our AGM website. If you have any individual customer or shareholder issue, please speak to one of our customer service team members here today.
For shareholders submitting written questions online, one of our customer service or share registry staff will be in touch with you after the meeting. For shareholders viewing the live webcast online, the platform is open, and you may submit your questions now.
With those procedural matters out of the way, I’ll hand over to your Chair, Craig Dunn.
Craig Dunn: Thank you, Nathan. Good morning, ladies, and gentlemen. My name is Craig Dunn and it’s my great pleasure to welcome you to Telstra’s 2024 Annual General Meeting. Thank you for joining us today and for your continued investment in Telstra. This meeting is being webcast, so a very warm welcome also to the many shareholders who have chosen to join us online.
A quorum is present and so I formally declare today’s meeting open. A Notice of Meeting has been distributed to shareholders setting out the business and resolutions to be considered today. I propose to take that notice as read. The items of business on today’s agenda are now being shown on the screen. Voting on Items 3 to 6 will be conducted by a poll and that poll is now open. Instructions on how to participate in the poll were distributed prior to the meeting and assistance is available at any time.
There are two points related to these items that I will touch on briefly now. In keeping with good corporate governance, during the year we reviewed our external audit engagement and tested the market and are proposing to change our external auditor. In anticipation that shareholders agree with this change, I’d like to thank Ernst and Young for their exemplary service over the past 24 years. We’ve enjoyed a productive relationship and have greatly appreciated their professionalism and independence.
I’ll also make some comments about the remuneration report when we come to that agenda item later in the meeting. I’m pleased to be joined on stage by my fellow Board Members, apart from Bridget Loudon who is on parental leave. Also joining us on stage is our Company Secretary, Sue Laver, and our Chief Financial Officer, Michael Ackland.
Indeed, this is Sue’s last AGM given she’s retiring from the company after 27 years at Telstra, including six years as Company Secretary. On behalf of the Board and everyone at Telstra, I offer Sue my sincere thanks and best wishes. So, thank you, Sue.
Director Niek Jan van Damme is also retiring from Telstra today after six years on the Board. I want to thank Niek Jan for his commitment and very substantial contribution to the Board during a period of very significant change. I wish you, Niek Jan, the very best wishes for the future.
Roy Chestnutt is standing for re-election today and you will hear from Roy shortly. Earlier today we announced the appointment of David Lamont as a non-executive director. David is an accomplished CFO and business leader who has held senior executive roles with major corporations including BHP and CSL. His appointment is effective 3 December 2024 and David will stand for election at our AGM in October next year.
Sarah Lowe from our auditors, Ernst and Young, is also here this morning and I know Sarah will be happy to answer any questions you may have on the audit or the auditor’s reports. Members of the senior management team are also present in the audience and I’m proud to join you for the first time as Chair and at my eighth AGM since joining the Telstra Board.
I’d now like to share with you some perspectives on our financial and operating performance since the beginning of T25, stress the importance of connectivity to Australia’s future, and highlight the extraordinary contribution our people at Telstra make to customers, communities, and to our country.
Beginning with our financial performance, where we have seen significant improvement over the last three years.
In FY24, we achieved our third consecutive year of underlying EBITDA growth. When coupled with a significant improvement in underlying return on invested capital, very importantly, this has allowed Telstra to deliver annual dividend compound growth of 4% over the last three years. This outcome has been achieved by maintaining a strong balance sheet and prudent debt levels.
Our mobiles business continues to perform very strongly, and we’re focused on maintaining this strength and momentum. Our infrastructure business are also performing well, reinforcing our confidence in our decision to retain ownership of InfraCo Fixed.
On the other hand, the performance of our Enterprise business has been disappointing, and its turnaround is important to get right. Vicki and our management team are facing into these challenges, and the Board believes they’re making the right decisions here. The reset of this business, however, will take time, discipline, and focus.
For customers, we’ve been relentless in improving what matters most to them. While we still have more to do, our customers are telling us that their experience continues to get better, as seen in our improving episode Net Promoter Score. Indeed, over the last three years, complaints by consumers and small businesses to the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman about Telstra have fallen by more than two-thirds. For our people, we’ve continued to invest in making Telstra a great place to work, and have maintained a high employee engagement score.
Reducing our emissions is good for Telstra and good for Australia, and we have reduced our absolute scope 1 and 2 emissions by 37% on a 2019 baseline. Recently, we set higher targets for reducing these emissions. As we embrace the last year of our T25 strategy, we are well-positioned to capitalise on the opportunities that lie ahead, with an updated strategy that will begin next financial year. Pleasingly, many of the fundamentals are working in our favour. Connectivity has never been more important and there is strong, growing demand for our core products and services.
Telecommunications has a critical role to play in Australia’s future and with so much done to set us up for success, the Board continues to be optimistic about Telstra’s future. More than ever, what we do underpins Australian industries, lives, and livelihoods.
Connectivity is the foundation for so many new technologies, including AI, which is expected to contribute billions of dollars to Australia’s economy. These new technologies will also mean significantly increased demand for our telecommunications infrastructure. This includes our intercity fibre network, which will play an important role in future-proofing Australia’s speed and capacity needs for decades to come.
In addition, every year customers expect to do more with their phones and to use more data. The resilience of our mobile network becomes ever more important. Building and operating this infrastructure and maintaining Australia’s leading mobile network requires us to make significant long-term investments.
Earning an appropriate return on these investments allows us to keep investing for the future. As shareholders, you have the right to expect reasonable returns on the capital you provide. We take that expectation very seriously. For example, we adjust our size and shape to fit the market and recently, we reduced a large number of roles across the business.
These decisions are never easy, but they are necessary for us to keep investing, to deliver connectivity to the standard our customers expect while also delivering value for our shareholders. We also set fair and competitive prices that reflect the value our products provide. With different options at a range of price points.
Based on our track record of adding new services and winning customers, we believe we get that balance right. At the same time, we’re very acutely aware of the very real economic pressures currently faced by many consumers and businesses alike. We continue to support Australians who may be doing it tough to stay connected. This includes people experiencing financial hardship, domestic violence, mental health issues, or natural disasters. We also have a significant discount on our Starter Mobile Plan for Pensioners and Veterans.
Furthermore, we constructively work with Government on policy and regulatory settings to underpin a financially sustainable and competitive telecommunications sector. In addition to your capital, our ability to meet the connectivity needs of our customers and our nation, fundamentally depends on the skills and commitment of our very passionate workforce.
Our people are the face of Telstra in local stores, in technology centres, on the road, and on the phone. Including supporting customers in the most vulnerable circumstances. They are maintaining and expanding Australia’s largest mobile network and laying our intercity fibre in every kind of terrain around our big country. They are on the ground when disaster strikes, working in the most difficult conditions to reconnect services and to keep people connected to their loved ones.
They are working to protect our customers from scams through our Cleaner Pipes work blocking more than 10 million scam calls and 14 million SMS scams each month, on average, over the last year. They’re working on Telstra’s contribution to Australia’s energy transition, which means we now support renewable energy projects worth more than $1.4 billion. At Telstra, we’re incredibly proud of our people and the contribution they make, and I thank them for everything they do.
As we move into our final year of our T25 strategy, the Board continues to be very confident in the Company’s outlook. While there is, of course, much more work to be done, we have a strong foundation to build on, significant opportunities to grow, and a highly capable leadership team and workforce.
On behalf of the Board, I’d like to conclude by thanking you, our shareholders, for your continued investment in Telstra. Our focus remains on delivering value - value for our customers, for our shareholders, and for our communities. Thank you, and I’ll now pass across to Vicki.
[Applause]
Vicki Brady: Thank you, Craig. Good morning everyone. I’m delighted to be here for my third AGM as CEO, and I look forward to hearing your comments and questions.
I’ll cover three things today; Telstra’s overall business performance for FY24, the investments we’re making in Australia’s future, picking up on some of Craig’s points, and our outlook for FY25. Turning first to our performance for the year.
You can see a summary of our FY24 results on the slide. Consistent and disciplined execution of our strategy has delivered our third consecutive year of underlying growth and positive momentum across many of our key indicators. Underlying EBITDA is a key measure, and it grew by almost $300 million, or 3.7% to $8.2 billion. This underlying EBITDA growth flowed through to underlying Net Profit After Tax which grew by 7.5% to $2.3 billion.
Our mobile and infrastructure businesses including InfraCo Fixed, Amplitel, and international, comprised 96% of our underlying EBITDA and grew strongly at rates of almost 6% or more. However, our Enterprise business underperformed. We commenced action during the year to address challenges in our enterprise business and took additional action on cost overall. Our reported earnings reflect these decisions and, combined with other adjustments, resulted in significant one-off net costs totalling $715 million.
As a result, reported EBITDA decreased by 4.2% to $7.5 billion and our reported net profit after tax reduced by 12.8% to $1.8 billion.
On the back of underlying earnings growth, the Board resolved to pay a fully franked final dividend of $0.09 per share, bringing total dividends for the year to $0.18 and representing a 5.9% increase compared to last year. This outcome is consistent with our policy to maximise the fully franked dividend and seek to grow it over time.
Turning to performance in the different parts of our business now. Our mobiles business has continued to perform very strongly, with EBITDA growth of over $400 million. This growth was driven by more people choosing our network, with more than 560,000 net new handheld customers, along with average revenue per user growth. Mobile services revenue grew by 5.6% and our mobile business underpinned our overall underlying earnings growth.
Our infrastructure businesses also grew, reflecting ongoing demand for our assets. InfraCo Fixed and Amplitel EBITDA grew by around $150 million in aggregate, further strengthening my confidence in our infrastructure growth ambitions.
Our intercity fibre network is an investment in Australia’s future growth, connectivity and digital prosperity. We recently announced an expansion of our strategic partnership with Microsoft, including signing contracts for the first routes they will use as foundational partner on this network. This is an example of the strong demand we see for these assets and their role in underpinning technology, including AI.
In fixed consumer and small business, we continued to grow with EBITDA growth of almost $120 million, reflecting ongoing cost discipline and average revenue per user growth.
We established Telstra Business in the year to focus on delivering for small and medium businesses and we now have a dedicated team to support their needs, innovation and growth.
While most parts of our business performed strongly, fixed enterprise is clearly a long way from where we need it to be. We have faced into underperformance, particularly within network applications and services and made decisions to begin the reset of that business.
This includes reducing our NAS products portfolio by two-thirds over the next few years and focusing on where we are clearly differentiated. We have also reorganised our teams to deliver better for customers and reduce our cost base.
The reset of our Enterprise business will take time, but I am confident in the initial actions we have taken. These necessary choices and decisions in Enterprise together with our additional action on costs mean we are confident in achieving our $350 million cost reduction ambition by the end of FY25.
Changes that affect our people are never easy and I do not underestimate the impact they have. We continue to support our people through change and minimise the impact on our customers.
Turning briefly to our T25 strategy. Despite challenges in Enterprise, the strong action we took in the second half of FY24 and growth in all other parts of the business means that overall, we are on track to achieve our ambitions, including growth in underlying EBITDA, earnings per share and return on invested capital.
Our achievements by strategic pillar and overall scorecard performance were included in our full year results material lodged with the ASX in August. I won’t talk to this in detail now, but it is available online in our investor centre should you wish to review it.
Over the last 12 months, we’ve continued to deliver on our purpose by investing in vital infrastructure for the nation, supporting more customers than ever and supporting Australia’s future prosperity.
A few things I will call out on this slide. This year, we have invested $5 billion in CapEx and mobile spectrum payments which brings us to $42 billion invested in CapEx and spectrum over the last 10 years. That investment has radically transformed the connectivity Australia relies on.
Over that decade we transitioned beyond 2G technologies, closing that network in 2016. After almost five years of planning and working with customers, we are now in the last stages of transitioning from 3G to 4G and 5G networks, which are faster, more secure and more reliable.
We know how important it is to give customers time to make this transition and so we have extended the closure of our 3G network, which will commence from 28 October. Our people have completed thousands of 4G site upgrades and optimised our entire 4G network to deliver coverage equivalent to 3G.
Until the network is fully closed, some devices may still connect to 3G, despite 4G being equivalent. After closure, all compatible devices will use the available 4G or 5G network.
Our overall investment has delivered Australia’s largest and most reliable mobile network, adding 240,000 square kilometres of additional mobile coverage since FY21 and now reaching 99.7% of the population.
As I mentioned, we are continuing to roll out our intercity fibre network and we now have over 2,200 kilometres of fibre in the ground.
We also continued to expand our subsea cable network, which is the largest in Asia Pacific and build more resilience into Australia’s connection to the world.
We remain Australia’s biggest investor in digital infrastructure.
For customers, this has delivered secure and reliable connectivity.
Given the extensive reach of our networks and the role they play in society today, it’s hard to think of an Australian who does not benefit from the Telstra network in some way every day. For example, our network supports more than 26 million mobile services and connectivity for more than 3 million households. More than 85% of the ASX100 are Telstra customers.
Our investments have improved connectivity and options in regional Australia. I visited with one of our first customers on our satellite home internet product who were thrilled to be able to do simple things that the majority of us take for granted, like watch a video shared in a family group chat and be part of the conversation in the moment, rather than catching up days later when they visited town and could finally download the video. The impact of people feeling truly connected is big.
Staying safe online also remains a priority for Australians. In addition to our Cleaner Pipes work which Craig mentioned earlier, we have expanded our Scam Indicator initiative with the Commonwealth Bank to cover landlines as well as mobiles and we continue to work closely with government and industry to bolster our country’s cyber defences.
For Australia, the connectivity we provide is vital to enabling our country to operate every day, underpinning everything from businesses big and small to governments, households, entertainment and public services. Every sector benefits from the investments we have made.
Over the past 12 months, we paid more than $2 billion in dividends to our shareholders, benefitting more than 16 million Australians. We employed more than 26,000 people in Australia and we paid more than $1 billion in taxes.
We understand how fundamental power and communications are during an extreme weather event and we have stepped up our disaster response efforts, including mobilising more than 3,000 of our people around the country to respond on the ground or via dedicated disaster assistance lines.
We are also reducing our emissions, stepping up our targets and supporting renewable energy generation, as Craig mentioned. Our purpose is to build a connected future so everyone can thrive and, in a technology enabled future, I believe that purpose is more important than ever.
Turning to guidance for FY25. You can see on the slide the ranges along with the conditions upon which we have provided them. We expect continued underlying EBITDA growth and tightened our guidance range in August upwards to $8.5 billion to $8.7 billion.
Business as usual CapEx including Digicel Pacific of $3.2 billion to $3.4 billion continues to demonstrate our disciplined approach to CapEx. Strategic investment of $0.3 billion to $0.5 billion in FY25 reflects the ramp up of our intercity fibre project.
Free cashflow before strategic investment is expected to be between $3 billion to $3.4 billion. This guidance includes around $300 million of cash outflow related to FY24 restructuring costs. It also demonstrates the cash generation of our operating business and supports our ambition to maximise our fully franked dividend and seek to grow it over time.
As we look ahead, we are focused on finishing T25 strongly and setting the business up for long term success. We’ve made excellent progress and achieved a lot so far.
In FY25, we must remain focused on lifting customer experience, continue delivering financial growth and value from our world leading mobile network and high-quality infrastructure, continue the reset of our Enterprise business and keep delivering on our commitment to simplify our operations and improve our productivity.
These actions are essential to support our sustainable growth and to put us in the position to deliver for customers now and in the long run.
I want to thank the Telstra team for all of their efforts this year. It is the combination of our network and technology, our purpose and the way our teams come together to deliver that makes a difference for our customers.
I’d also like to thank our shareholders for your continued support and investment and our Board for your leadership and guidance over the last 12 months.
I am optimistic about the opportunities ahead. Telstra’s digital infrastructure and network will be increasingly central to how Australians live and work and we are focused on investing sustainably to deliver for our customers and our shareholders.
Thank you.
Craig Dunn: Thank you, Vicki.
Right, well now we’ll move to the formal part of the meeting and the items of business are being shown on the screen.
Nathan outlined at the start of the meeting how you can ask a question and vote.
Shareholders viewing the webcast online may also submit questions through the online platform and, as I mentioned earlier, voting on Items 3 to 6 is being conducted by poll.
Mr Chris Healey of MUFG formerly of Link Market Services, Telstra Share Registry, is acting as our returning officer in relation to the poll.
We have received proxies from over 13,100 shareholders and direct votes from over 10,600 shareholders. We will display the proxy and direct votes recorded for and against an item on the screen when we get to that item. The four numbers include proxies received and available to be voted by the Chair of the meeting.
I now turn to Item 2 on today’s agenda, which is to discuss the Company’s financial statements and reports for the year ended 30 June 2024. This item provides shareholders with the opportunity ask questions about our 2024 financial statements and reports, as well as the business operations and management of Telstra. You can also ask questions of our auditor, Ernst & Young.
So, now I’ll take questions from shareholders about our 2024 results, or any general questions about your companies. Shareholders, I invite you to move to a microphone to ask a question. For shareholders viewing the webcast online, please submit your questions through the online platform.
To ensure there is an even spread of questions from shareholders in the room and those submitted online, I will rotate between the two. To allow shareholders in the room time to move to a microphone, I will start with questions online first.
If you have a customer related question, please see one of our team members here today. Customer related queries received online will also be responded to by our customer service team.
So, Nathan, do we have any online questions for Item 2?
Nathan Burley: Yes, Craig, we do have some online questions, and the first question comes from Michael Harris.
Why should I, or other Telstra customers, stay with Telstra when you continually fail to provide the core services of your business with continual degradation and failing of the Telstra network in the greater Hills district? When issues are reported, Telstra can’t do anything unless the customer is onsite and able to waste a large amount of time to help resolve it.
Given the fact we pay you to maintain and improve the network, why should we need to do your job for you?
Craig Dunn: Thank you, Mr Harris, and I’m sorry that you haven’t experienced the service that you expect from Telstra, and I’d certainly like one of our team members to follow up with you after the meeting.
We do have a very large, complex network. We have more than 240,000 of fibre, we have more than 7,000 exchanges, 8,000 towers, 160,000 poles, so it is a very complex exercise to operate that network every day of the year.
Having said that, we’re very proud in the quality of our mobile network and we’re very keen on continuing to invest in that. Vicky talked about in her presentation the amount of investment we make every year to make sure we keep maintaining Australia’s leading network.
But, as I said, I’m sorry you haven’t experienced the service you expect and I’d like to follow up with you after the meeting.
Nathan Burley: Our next online question is from Bruce Bebbington.
Priority assistance. With a 24-hour response time under the Code, we’ve had 24 day, 20 day and currently an eight day wait for the first available for technicians, with no interim services due to no mobile coverage and Telstra confirming the interim satellite solution does not work in our area.
Is the Board happy with the response times for priority assistance and why are these delays so excessive?
Craig Dunn: So, priority assistance is a very important service, so effectively so rather for other shareholders who may not be across it in the room and online, that’s a requirement for people that have very difficult or challenging health problems that need special support and need to have access to a landline or phoneline, so we take that obligation very seriously. We’ve invested very significantly over time in making sure we honour that promise and that commitment.
Again, I’m sorry that you haven’t had the experience that you deserve. That’s not an acceptable experience under Priority Assist and, again, I’d like to take that matter up with you separately, or with our customer service team, so we can remediate that.
But just to reinforce, that’s an obligation we take very seriously and we’ve committed significant resources to make sure we can honour that promise and that commitment.
Nathan Burley: Okay, we’ll take one more online question before moving to the floor. This question is from Joe Alvaro.
Why are Telstra customers who have not got computer access, or who choose not to use online services, being forced to manage their account online, through charging them fees to receive a paper bill, asking them to use chatbots rather than accessing a live human staff member, receiving text messages from Telstra, without being able to respond to them et cetera?
Surely these customers, many of them elderly and vulnerable people, people suffering trauma from scams, should not be treated unfairly in this way.
Craig Dunn: So, thank you for that question, sir and you’ve raised a number of points and so let me try and make sure I deal with each of them in some detail.
So, just with paper billing, obviously we do encourage our customers wherever they can, to use our digital service and use our Telstra app. Our view is that provides arguably a better service and is more convenient for many customers. It is important to say though, of the paper bills that we issue, 70% of our customers don’t pay for those bills. We are conscious of people that are unable to access a digital service, or don’t have the capacity to do so, so we’re very mindful of that.
As far as our call centres go, we have listened to the community about that. We have moved the answering of our calls in our call centre for customers and small business customers back on shore and we’ve made a very significant commitment to do that. Again, if you haven’t received the service you expect, I’m sorry for that, but we have taken that feedback very seriously.
In terms of customer service more generally, I’m the first to admit that we have more to do. Having said that, we have invested very significantly in improving the outcomes for our customers. We’ve simplified our product range, we’re digitising our core services, I’ve talked about moving the answering of contact calls back on shore, we’ve taken full ownership of our retail stores, we’re doing everything we can to improve our service.
We do see our customers telling us that notwithstanding the point that we’ve got more to do, that is coming through improved Net Promoter Scores and, as I mentioned in my opening comments, over the last three years, and maybe this is the best judge, the number of complaints that consumers and small business customers make to the telecommunications ombudsman has fallen by more than two-thirds.
Nathan Burley: We’ll now move to the floor, and we’ll take a question from microphone number two.
Female Moderator: Chair, I have a lady named Natasha Lee with a question.
Natasha Lee: Good morning. Thank you, Chair. Yes, Natasha Lee, shareholder.
The presentation I feel some of your metrics, you’re painting a glossy picture, sort of the more positive things and whilst I’m not dissatisfied with the level of dividends you’ve paid and things like that, you talk about underlying EBITDA and I understand the reason for that, but actually EBITDA is down.
Your earnings per share are also down and that probably reflects the sort of flatlining of the actual share price, which probably shareholders look more at being the share price and the dividends.
There are concerns. Now, you’ve blamed a lot of this on your enterprise, lacklustre enterprise side of the business and I’m not sure whether all that can be attributed to that, and you talk about your strategy. I’m concerned about the ability to really deliver to improve those metrics, which are going to see a movement of the share price, say, back up to $4 where it probably should be.
You also talk about AI and whilst businesses are moving towards AI and the like, and probably reflecting the last online question, there is a concern, as far as I’m concerned, that when you use these platforms, you’re given like half a dozen options and it’s very difficult to navigate and time consuming and you sort of can end up down a rabbit hole if you select the wrong option and you’ve got to come back out and go back in, all those sorts of things. So, I also would ask to what degree is this technology being tested on a wide range of people?
I feel that sometimes these things are developed by 20 or 30 year olds who are quite tech savvy, not like, including myself, the majority of these people who tend to be in the older age bracket and have a degree of tech savviness, but nowhere near sufficient to easily navigate these platforms, so there are sort of a number of parts that are questioned about the performance and your strategy moving forwards.
Craig Dunn: Okay. Thank you, Natasha, and thank you for your question. You’ve raised a number of issues there so I’ll do my very best to make sure I get to each of them.
Firstly, on AI, we do believe that that can fundamentally transform the organisation, including customer service, and so we are employing AI in a couple of areas and I’ll give you an example.
So, one of the challenges with the contact centre is a very hard job to do well, and in most contact centres because of that you have quite high staff turnover. The more quickly we can train our people and get them up to speed, the better outcomes for you as a customer.
What one of our AI initiatives allows us to do is that it effectively summarises a range of policies, procedures and outcomes, so when a person takes a call from you in the contact centre, they can use that AI [sic] to give you a more specific and direct and better answer.
We’re also trialling AI where, and sometimes this happens and it’s not ideal, you may have to go back to the call centre more than once or several times. It is frustrating for customers to say, well, I’ve spoken to three or four different people and you don’t really understand the history of the earlier call.
We’re now using AI which allows a quick summary for the call centre operator to understand what you’ve said and gives them a one sentence summary so they can respond more quickly to your query. So, we are being careful on how we introduce it, because obviously the quality of AI depends on the quality of data. We did have a very long discussion at our audit and risk committee yesterday to work through how making sure we get that right, but I do think it has the potential to improve service outcomes for our customers and frankly for many of our employees make their jobs more interesting and fulfilling.
On the flatlining of our results, so this year’s result and in my presentation, you’re quite right, I talked about underlying EBITDA and, in our view, that’s the best measure of the underlying performance of our business. I mentioned in my opening remarks that that had improved consecutively over the last three years.
It is fair to say, and I think Vicky touched on this in her presentation, we did have some large one-off items this year that impacted the very bottom line, or our net profit after tax, which is the number you refer to. We do believe the earlier number, or the underlying number, is a better picture of the underlying performance of the business, but I accept we did have some large one-offs.
Regarding the share price, I’d just like to reinforce with you that we’re very much aligned with your desire to grow the value of the business and to improve dividends over time. Again, one of the good things that we’ve seen recently over the last three years is growth in our dividend, which I talked about in my opening remarks.
I just do want to make the point that the remuneration structure for our senior executives is totally aligned with your interests on growing the value of our enterprise. Around 75% of our variable remuneration is made available to our senior executives in some form of equity and the majority of that only vests, and only vests after four or five years, if we’ve been able to meet the hurdles on total shareholder return.
Regarding the individual performance that you mentioned in each of our businesses – sorry this is a long answer, but you asked a number of questions and I want to come to each of them, we were really pleased with pretty well all of our businesses. Our mobile business, which is a very large business, grew its underlying EBITDA by 9% over the prior year, which is an outstanding result for our shareholders and, apart from Enterprise, each of our other major segments also grew their underlying earnings.
Enterprise was disappointing and Vicki and I both spoke about that in opening remarks and we’ve got some hard work to do to turn around that business.
So, just to reinforce my point, we’re very much aligned with you as shareholders in growing the Enterprise value of Telstra over time.
Natasha Lee: Thank you very much. Yes, I didn’t expect you to have all the answers as such. It is a case of wait and see, but I appreciate it. It was more to express the feelings from shareholders and to be mindful of the issues going forward.
Female Moderator: Okay, thank you.
Nathan Burley: We will go to microphone number one.
Female Moderator: Chairman, I’d like to introduce Don Walker to speak.
Don Walker: (Shareholder) Mr Chairman, I’m a shareholder. I’ve got a couple of questions, Mr Chairman. Firstly, you’ve got 280 stores throughout Australia. Please can I have the total revenue for year ’24 for all those stores in revenue?
My question, my number two question, is my phone bill. Normally I pay that towards the end of the month. Now for the landline, I’ve got to pay it in advance. I’ve got to pay the rental in advance and phone calls in advance. Why is that please, Mr Chairman? Why has that all changed? Thank you.
Craig Dunn: Thank you, sir for your question. We don’t disclose publicly the revenue from our stores. They are a very important avenue though for our customers and as I mentioned I think in an earlier answer to my question, one of the changes that we’ve made in recent times is take back full ownership of those stores, because we understand how important they are to the customers’ experience.
I’m not familiar with the particular product you’re in sir, but can I ask that, if you don’t mind, that I get someone from our customer services team to speak to you later to better understand the point…
Don Walker: Sorry, sir, but paying in advance for the landline – I don’t know why it’s all changed because most of us have mobile phones – which I do – and that’s paid in advance. You’ve got to pay well in advance but the landlines – that’s rental in advance which you haven’t even used yet.
Craig Dunn: Okay. Thank you, Mr Walker. Vicky, do you want to give us a bit more colour on the approach we take to the pricing of those plans?
Vicki Brady: Yes. Absolutely. Thanks, Mr Walker, for your question. In some of the comments Craig made earlier and I spoke about, we’re in a process of improving the system so it does involve migrating our customers to a new digital environment that actually, we can see through the results, delivers much better outcomes.
As part of that transition, in order to simplify our products and services, all of our products and services move to an in-advance month in terms of the charge, so it does create that one off change as we change over but it does work the same way as our mobile services work, so it brings them consistently treated in the same way. That’s the change that’s going on. It’s a one-off change as you change over, and then mobile and landline services are set up the same way.
Craig Dunn: Great. Thank you, Vicki. Thank you, Mr Walker.
Nathan Burley: We’ll continue with questions on the floor. The next question from microphone number 2.
Female Moderator: Chair, I have Sue Howes with a question.
Sue Howes: (Australian Shareholders’ Association, Representative) Good morning. I’m Sue Howes from the Australian Shareholders’ Association. This morning, I’m representing 1,273 retail shareholders and I hold proxies with just under $71 million. I have two questions under this item. Would you like me to ask both now or rotate?
Craig Dunn: Why don’t you ask them both together, if that suits you best, and then…
Sue Howes: (Australian Shareholders’ Association, Representative) Thank you.
Craig Dunn: Thank you.
Sue Howes: (Australian Shareholders’ Association, Representative) Mr Chairman, there has been concern expressed by some defence analysts that in the event of an escalation of geopolitical tensions in the region, undersea cables might be the target of sabotage by bad actors. What is Telstra doing to protect these cables and defend any attack on them or their landing stations, given that one is in Chinese Hong Kong?
Craig Dunn: Did you want to ask your other question as well or do you want to do one by one?
Sue Howes: (Australian Shareholders’ Association, Representative) Yes. One by one. Thanks.
Craig Dunn: Okay. Sure. Okay, so it’s a very good question because I think we all know the world’s changing very rapidly and the geopolitical risks that perhaps we thought was the case five years ago or 10 years ago is very different today. We do have a regular update to the Board on that. In fact, we’ve got a paper in the coming board meeting in looking at that.
We are conscious of the risk in certain parts of the world. Some of those existing investments are long term investments that aren’t easily changed quickly. It is fair to say a lot of cable operators, given the changing geopolitical risk in terms of the future investments they’re making and where they lay their cable are being very conscious of that, including where they build their new landing stations. That’s certainly an approach we’re taking in terms of our undersea cable network.
Today, notwithstanding the advent of satellites, I think the last data I saw was undersea cables still move 97% of the world’s data around the world, so they’re still very important. They are potentially exposed to some sort of risk. That’s why it’s also important to have redundancy, so again, one of the things that we look at as a subsea cable operator – and we do this, of course, terrestrially in Australia with our network – is to have more than one option available in terms of subsea cable networks coming into Australia so that if we were to lose one for an accident or a nefarious reason, we’d have a capacity to deal with that. In a sense, we have the infrastructure we have. The world’s changing very quickly but we’re very conscious of the points you’ve raised, and in my view, dealing with that on the front foot.
Sue Howes: (Australian Shareholders’ Association, Representative) Thank you. My second question is, Telstra seems to be narrowing its scope of business to focus on its core. Your share of Foxtel in Telstra ventures are up for sale. Can you explain the commercial and retail shareholder implications, please? Will there be any special dividends as part of the result?
Craig Dunn: You mention our investment in Foxtel. News have announced publicly that they’re undertaking a strategic review of that investment which may or may not lead to a sale. If that were to lead to a sale at a reasonable price, we think that would be a sensible move or decision to make on your behalf as shareholders.
From time to time, the importance of certain assets and their contribution to the value proposition we make to our customers does change. We don’t believe necessarily – notwithstanding, I think the management of Foxtel have done an outstanding job in managing that business. It’s not clear to us long term that that remains a part of our core business. The Board believes, as does Vicki, focus on our core business is the right thing to do. We’re very pleased with the quality of our core business and we think we can deliver the returns to you as shareholders by delivering growth through that core business.
If from time to time we were to make some disposals and they were significant enough to warrant the return of capital to shareholders, we would do that. We’ve done that in the past. When we sold down a large share of our Towers business, we returned much of that capital back to shareholders through buybacks of our shares. Thanks, Sue.
Nathan Burley: Thank you. We’ll stay on the floor. Microphone number 3?
Female Moderator: Thank you. Chair, I have Ericka Van Aalst with a question, please.
Ericka Van Aalst: (Shareholder) Thank you.
Female Moderator: That’s okay.
Ericka Van Aalst: (Shareholder) Okay. Thank you. I’m a Telstra shareholder of over 40 years and a Telstra customer for over 50 years. My question concerns risk to shareholders of Telstra’s systematic failure in dealing with complex complaints. In 2018, I addressed the AGM because I had no working phone service for years. I still have no working phone service. My internet was with another provider. When the NBN came in, I moved my internet to Telstra. In August this year, my internet was cut off by Telstra without any notification.
Later, I found it was for an unpaid disputed bill for services not received which had accrued because I had been advised and directed by reputable suitable bodies, including NSW Fair Trading, TIO and the Minister’s Office, not to pay, which I can verify. Now, I am isolated without any mode of communication service. Each time I try to contact Telstra about this, Telstra sends an automated response, opening a new complaint which tells me to ring them when I do not have a working phone.
Also, historically, they passed my matter from person to person with no one reading my file. There’s no continuity and they close cases without resolution. The only person who knows the history of the matter is me. No one at Telstra is interested in my lived experience. Is this an inherent problem? No internet and no working telephone service. Telstra clearly can’t provide basic services to me – someone who lives in Vaucluse, Sydney. Is there an inherent problem?
I am another example of a customer being traumatised and harassed because Telstra does not have in place a system to resolve complaints other than the quick fix. My case is another reputational risk for Telstra. There is a risk to shareholders because Telstra is not able to provide basic communication services and threatens vulnerable people.
Could you explain why we should value the shares at the market value when it is clear there are inherent problems of taking a matter like mine to conclusion and providing communication services to all people? There is a body of people out there that should concern shareholders. Telstra’s reputation is at stake. Telstra claims to be Australia’s foremost communication company, yet I have not been given a way to communicate with them.
Craig Dunn: Thank you for your question. Firstly, I’m sorry that you’ve had the service outcome that you’ve had. I’m sorry, also, that you feel like the only way you can get redress is to come to the annual general meeting and go…
Ericka Van Aalst: (Shareholder) [I did get that address in 2018, though. I was here at 2018].
Craig Dunn: I’m sorry, madam, I don’t recall that particular question, but again, I apologise for the service you’ve had. Again, I’m sorry that the only way you feel you can get redress is to come to the AGM and speak to the Board, directly. Can I please ask, if you’re able to, that we get a senior management member of our team to sit down with you after the meeting and go through your issues and make sure we address them? Again, I apologise.
Ericka Van Aalst: (Shareholder) [Unclear]. [There’s no point] [unclear] 99.7%. There’s quite a lot of people in the Australian population.
Craig Dunn: I understand. Thank you.
Nathan Burley: We will move back to online questions, Craig. This question comes from Joe Alvaro. Regarding past concerns from shareholders, the resources that would have been used to campaign for political issues like the Yes vote in the Voice Referendum and that some managers will claim politics through the Company and spending time to campaign to abolish Australia Day through the CEO’s public stance that she is not proud of our national holiday, have efforts been made to focus more on the prime function of Telstra with a view to not alienating diverse Telstra customers who have different political views to Telstra managers?
Craig Dunn: Okay. Thank, sir, for that question. Firstly, just let me comment on Australia Day. This is part of our enterprise agreement that we’ve just renegotiated with our employees. They’ve asked for the choice to make a decision on whether they celebrate Australia Day on the given day or another day. We allow employees to make that choice. That’s a matter for them.
As far as the Voice campaign goes, I know there are a range of views on that and there are people that don’t support the decision that the Board made on that issue. I just do want to make the point that the Board did consider this matter very carefully. We did not make that decision because of particular views of the Senior Management Team or the Board. We made that decision because we thought it was in the best interests of the Company. Telstra has had a long history of supporting reconciliation. That is important to us.
I just want to make the point that a key part or key parts of our reconciliation program are about working with Indigenous or First Nations peoples to improve their opportunity to get gainful employment, including in remote Australia. We also have significant initiatives that we undertake with First Nations people around digital inclusion and digital training, which we do for many Australians. So, again, I understand there are a wide range of views on that. There are people that don’t agree with the choices we made as a Board. I just do want to stress that we did consider those views very carefully and we made a decision that we thought was in the best interests of the Company.
Nathan Burley: Thank you. We will continue online. This question comes from Bruce Bebbington. Overseas contact centres. Telstra still maintains customer contact centres in Mumbai and Manila. 1800 [66]2 709 is a fault escalation. I spoke to them yesterday. After hours PSTN copper faults are still handled by staff in Manila. How many customer and business contact centres are still overseas and when will these customer contact centres be brought to Australia?
Craig Dunn: Again, I will reiterate the point I made before – but just before I go to that, we do have some specialist calls that are still dealt with from offshore call centres. We did hear and listened to the feedback we got from our customers, including at a range of AGMs, that you would prefer those calls to be answered in Australia and so the very vast great bulk of calls that we take from Australian consumers and small businesses are now handled onshore in Australia.
Nathan Burley: The next question is from Stephen Mayne. Thank you, Niek Jan van Damme for his six years of service on the Board. It is always helpful for investors to have access to some exit perspectives from retiring independent directors. In his final contribution as a Telstra director, could Niek Jan please comment on what he regards as the best decisions Telstra made during his time on the Board and does he have any regrets? Also, why is he going after six years, and could he offer some reflections on how the chair succession was handled over the past 18 months?
Craig Dunn: Thank you, Mr Mayne. You’ve raised a number of questions there so let me try and deal with each of those in turn. Thank you for also acknowledging Niek Jan’s contribution to the Board. Niek Jan joined us in 2018 at the AGM in October in that year. He’s made a very, very significant contribution over a period of significant change. One of the benefits of Niek Jan – and indeed, Eelco and Roy – is that they bring significant telco expertise, including from other markets.
You’d expect as a part of the departure of Niek Jan, given his personal decision to retire form the Board, that we’ve spent a fair bit of time with Niek Jan, understanding his perspectives as an outgoing director. Niek Jan, of course – I can’t remember the number of board meetings you’ve attended, Niek Jan, over six years but there are many – has also always rather been very clear on sharing his views and challenging management and the Board about where are areas they can improve.
Just on director tenure – and that’s, again, a very good question from you, Mr Mayne – there are a range of different views on how the Board should approach that. We don’t have set board limits. We know some boards do. One view is they provide an end date to encourage change and movement in the Board. Another view is sometimes they can say, well, you’ve got a term limit of nine years or 10 years and I expect to be on the board for that period of time. That’s not the view we take.
We’ll have some directors that may be effective directors for nine years or 12 years. We have maybe got some directors who join us for a period of six years, are very, very good directors but the strategy of the business has changed and therefore we need a different capability set around the board. That’s not the case with Niek Jan. Niek Jan’s decided to make a personal decision. Again, I thank you, Mr Mayne, for acknowledging the contribution Niek Jan’s made over the last six years.
Nathan Burley: We’ll return to a question from the floor. I’ll take a question from microphone number 1.
Female Moderator: Chair, I would like to introduce Kaz Kazim to speak.
Kaz Kazim: (Shareholder) Thank you. Good morning. I have been a customer far longer than I’ve been a shareholder and it’s not my purpose here to bag you. I’d like to acknowledge some of the work you’ve done but there are plenty of problems arising from customer service. I’ve experienced them, just like that lady from Vaucluse has. When Mr David Thodey was here, I complained to him. Some things happened. A lot of things didn’t happen.
I sent him a paper by Harvard Professor, Chris Argyris, Teaching Smart people How to Learn. He read it within an hour, got back to me, he said, thank you, and I engage in defensive reasoning. I think this is what happens at Telstra meetings and in the services that you provide. You keep talking about customer service. My local shop in Randwick was closed and then I used to go to Bondi Junction. Didn’t get much service there. They looked at my account. Oh, we’ve escalated – technical – this, this, this, but they wouldn’t give me a number to ring back. I had to appear in person. Finally, I found a place in George Street. Now that George Street store is closed. When I tried to find out where they are – I went to the Royal Square store. They looked at me. Oh, it’s there somewhere. Where?
What sort of customer service is this? Can I ask you, how much money do you spend on advertising every year, please? Because I think it’s becoming more a marketing exercise giving the impression that you’re doing a great job and profits when the service is not there. It’s an embarrassment. I’d like Telstra to become a model for excellence – not just within Australia but a universal model. When I go to an Apple store, the manner in which they provide help and service is excellent. My experiences in Randwick, Bondi Junction and George Street were appalling until I found one person.
Then I thought, okay, I’ve got his email address, I’ve got his number. When I needed, I was told that my Telstra points or something are going to expire, so I said, look, I’ll go to the George Street store or ask him how to address and overcome the loss of those points. Couldn’t find it. Went to the Royal Square. They couldn’t tell me where he was. I sent him an email request. I didn’t get a reply, so what sort of customer service is this? I mean, you keep talking, so how much money do you spend advertising? Can you give me a figure, please?
Craig Dunn: Thank you, sir. Again, I’m sorry you haven’t got the service you expect. We don’t disclose how much we spend on advertising, like we don’t disclose a number of items in individual parts of our profit and loss. Just regarding our store footprint, though – because clearly you haven’t received the service you expect and I’m sorry for that – and again, we have people available today who are very happy to sit down with you and really keen to hear your feedback.
On our store footprint, like any store footprint, from time to time we will renovate or find that it makes more sense to put a store in a different place because it’s more convenient for customers. I’m not sure what we disclose on our website in terms of the location of our stores. We do make that clear – but again, I’m sorry for your service, sir – but one of the changes we’ve made which has led to an increase in our staff members – and has led, in fact, to a higher cost – is by taking full ownership of all our stores. Some of them were franchised and owned by other agents.
Part of the stepped process to improve that experience was, first, to take full ownership and now invest in improved service outcomes. Clearly, you haven’t had that experience. I’m sorry for that and very happy for people to speak through afterwards so that we can remediate that. Sorry, can we just…
Kaz Kazim: (Shareholder) When Mr Thodey was in office, I think the figure for advertising was something like $235 million. I assume it would be much more, now. What are we getting? We’re getting all this marketing hoopla but not the service. Not one person in the Bondi store or the Randwick store could give me an answer. They said, oh, we’ve escalated, it’s a technical flaw – something or other. I had to go in person. Then, of course, trying to meet the same person that I talked to the last time wasn’t available.
What sort of a joke do you pull on us? We’ve supported you all our life like that other lady who said she’s been a customer for 50 years. Well, I’ve been a foundation shareholder and a customer. I don’t want to go to another network. I would like to see Telstra become a model of excellence, as I said before. I talked to Mr Thodey about it. I sent him a paper. He read it. He said, thank you, and he’ll circulate it to his staff. He said, yes, I engage in defensive reasoning. I mean, how rare is that for a Telstra CEO to acknowledge something like that? I mean, it’s incredible.
Who do you get your strategic advice from? Any of the four consulting firms? I mean, they’re found to be wanting – as we’ve discovered – repeatedly discovered, their own organisations are in a dystopian mess, and to get advice from them and paying for it is adding insult to injury. I mean, what’s going on? How do we address these issues? They’re so fundamental. It’s our money that’s being spent to make fools of ourselves.
Craig Dunn: Again, sir, I’m sorry that’s your experience. I appreciate that we’ve got more to do on customer service. That’s an ongoing journey. I can assure you, notwithstanding your personal experience – and again, I apologise for that – we’re investing very significantly in improving our customer service. It’s not perfect. It’s far from it. We’ve got more progress to make but we are seeing substantial improvements in the areas I said and it’s a continued focus going forward. Thank you, sir.
Kaz Kazim: (Shareholder) Okay.
Nathan Burley: We’ll take our next question from microphone number 2.
Female Moderator: Chair, I have Peter Starr with a question.
Peter Starr: (Shareholder) Good morning, ladies and gentlemen and fellow shareholders. Welcome, Craig. You’ll know that I’m a pretty hard taskmaster. I think you’ve got some big shoes to fill, given your two predecessors but I’ll await your performance, and I’ll judge it accordingly.
Craig Dunn: As you should.
Peter Starr: (Shareholder) Thank you. Just a couple of things that are probably more directed to the CEO, Vicki. Good morning, Vicki. Glad to see that you got back from North Korea – oh. No. South Korea. That’s right. Yes. Blue jacket instead of the yellow jacket. That’s very good. Now, some issues that were raised by the previous shareholder. I found out the store there in George Street just by accident myself, but I know we’ve moved into Pitt Street, for those who don’t know. It’s temporary but it is coming back. You’ll be pleased to hear, ladies and gentlemen, it is coming back better [than] bigger. I hope it’ll be just as successful as it was when it was there.
Some other issues that I raise on behalf of myself and the shareholders I represent is that we don’t like to see – to turn on A Current Affair and there it is. There’s an issue with Telstra, or there’s an issue with Telstra, or there’s this issue. I’ve listened to some of the other shareholders speak. I don’t need to turn on or for a shareholder to send me a text or a video and say, Mr Starr, have you seen this? Vicki’s well aware that I raise these issues direct with her. I’m privileged to have that communication. I must say, too, that your Chief of Staff, Jen Bryce, has been really helpful – but a couple of things.
What are we doing in relation to making certain that we do not have this customer issue, whether it be from one customer or 0.3%? Maybe that’s something that Vicki could address. The other thing I want to talk about is the loyalty program. Now, I was pleased to meet Brad, who took over Michael Ackland. How are you? We’re talking about their – I think – and I’ve raised this on a number of occasions – about the Rewards or the loyalty program. I think it needs a complete overhaul to make it relevant for 2024.
Craig Dunn: Okay. Thank you, Peter. Nice to see you again. Welcome to the AGM. I think I’ve dealt – I understand the point on the closure of the George Street store. I also really like it. Sometimes to renovate and improve things, you have to close things and reopen them. I understand the point around the importance of the store network to our customers. From time to time, customer experience has been aired in the media. I mean, that’s the world we live in. Obviously, the best way to solve that is to not have those poor customer experiences in the first instance. I hear the feedback today. I think we’ve making improvements. I know we’ve got a way to go so I accept that.
On the Telstra loyalty points scheme, I’m glad you raised that because we now have more than 5.7 million of our customers involved in that scheme so clearly, it’s very popular and has landed well with most of our customers. We do regularly ask our customers how they feel about that scheme. We do have good feedback but I’m sure we can always improve it. Clearly, you’ve got some views on how we might do that. So, again, Peter, I’d be very happy for someone to meet with you after the meeting and hear your views in more detail so we can make it as good as we can.
Peter Starr: (Shareholder Representative) Thank you.
Nathan Burley: We’ll stay on the floor and take the next question from microphone number 2, again.
Female Moderator: Chair, I have Natasha Lee with a question.
Natasha Lee: (Shareholder) Thank you. I promise this is much easier. Look, congratulations on your ability to reduce your emissions – greenhouse gas emissions, that is. I note that you are looking at or exploring other technologies and opportunities to further reduce emissions, which is great and it’s something which we should be doing. I was just curious if you can explain the strategy or what are the metrics you’re looking at - the payback, value for money, type of issues which goes into the thinking to invest in these technologies?
Craig Dunn: Great. Thank you. Another very good question. Thank you, Natasha. Obviously, this is a really important matter for the Company, and indeed, the country. We take climate change very seriously. It’s impacting our network every day as we speak, and so the way the Board and senior management think about that challenge is way in twofold. (1) We’ve got a responsibility and an obligation to remove – reduce, rather our carbon footprint, which I’ll come back to. Then as we go through or as the country goes through the change to a different energy mix, obviously there are some risks around that, and we need to make sure our network is as resilient as possible, because obviously it’s very difficult to provide the network we do without access to power and energy when we’re a big user of power and energy.
Coming back to the first point, on emissions. We have made a recent change on our Scope 1 and 2 emissions, and Scope 1 and 2 emissions, many people will be across the detail -are actually our direct emissions that we cause to happen and our energy that we consume. We have had a target to reduce those over a 2019 base level by 50%. We increased this target more recently - and sorry, this is a target by 2030. We increased that target to 70% recently, and the reason we’ve done that is we do feel with - a challenge in Telstra is its constantly changing technology.
One of the benefits is often the new technologies that come onstream are a lot more energy efficient. So, for example, as a topical issue, 4G and 5G tend to be a lot more energy efficient than 3G. We do feel like we’ve got significant opportunities to further lower our footprint, our carbon footprint. We invest significantly in doing those and there’s an added benefit by doing that because actually, it lowers our energy costs and that’s obviously an important cost for shareholders.
Natasha Lee: (Shareholder) Okay, and as far as investments on things like the batteries and solar panels, do you have a payback ratio or payback period on those sorts of investments?
Craig Dunn: One of the approaches we’ve taken - and Vicki, jump in if you’d like to give more detail. One of the approaches we’ve taken is pretty well every investment we make in the Company now is to understand its carbon footprint and therefore include that in the way we think on a day-to-day basis. Batteries are important for a range of reasons, including the resilience point I mentioned before.
One of the challenges we face in our network is because it draws down on energy consumption across a very big, large country, as we all know. Particularly, you can have an energy fault or in a natural disaster - often energy falls away and therefore it’s very difficult for us to generate mobile tower capacity because it requires energy to do that. So, what we’ve done with our battery program, and we invested very significantly in this, is batteries obviously provide a cleaner form of backup energy in the event that energy goes down, particularly say for example in a natural disaster.
Energies are a cleaner form of backup than say diesel generation, very obviously, and we’re making a significant investment in improving that battery backup. The way we think about that is the importance of the quality of the service to our customers but equally, people use Telstra because they depend on our mobile network. So, having backup capacity that’s using clean energy is very important. So, we do think through the economics, and as I said, increasingly, in almost every major decision we now make in Telstra is we think through the energy footprint and the consequences that might have.
Natasha Lee: (Shareholder) Okay. Thank you.
Nathan Burley: Now the floor, microphone number 1.
Female Moderator: Chair, I would like to introduce Kerry Croydon to speak.
Kerry Croydon: (Shareholder) Thank you for this opportunity. I’m a long-term shareholder and client of Telstra, basically grateful for the support I’ve had over many decades from Telstra for your services including priority assistance. I have two questions. First, I would just like an indication about your relationship, if it is still ongoing, with Aldi, and secondly, your relationship with NBN. I still cling to my landline. I’m comfortable with it and perhaps slightly more trusting than my iPhone. I just get besieged with attempted scam attempts on the landline, cold calls.
The opening statement is invariably what’s your internet service like and if I say something like oh, it seems okay and maybe a bit slow, and then the claim is always I’m ringing from Telstra, or I’m ringing from NBN, and then unfolds a very extended psychological management of me, reassuring me that they can improve that service. So, I’m also interested besides your relationship if it still is ongoing with Aldi, your relationship with NBN and how to protect we old people where your independence is really totally dependent on having trustworthy and reliable communication services from Telstra. Thanks.
Craig Dunn: Thank you, Madam. You’ve asked some really important questions. Can I go to scams first, because I think obviously this is a really important issue for the whole community. I think unfortunately too many of us either have family or friends or know of people where trusting and decent people like yourself, others have sought to take advantage of you with criminals online. It’s a really, really awful thing that’s happening in our community. I’ve talked about the seriousness with which Telstra take that.
I mentioned in my opening comments our Cleaner Pipes initiative. The Federal Government, you may have read, is taking this also very seriously. This needs to be a team effort by corporate Australia to work with government and the community as best we can to address that risk. So, it’s a really important issue that you’ve raised and as a community we’ve just got to keep investing to protect innocent people.
On Aldi - I think it was Aldi, was that the - sorry, my hearing is getting not so good as I get older, as young as I look. Aldi, we have a wholesale relationship where we provide them a mobile service capacity. Aldi then determine the relationship they have with the customer, the pricing they charge and the like, and that’s an ongoing, important relationship that we have with Aldi.
On NBN, they are a very important partner of ours. We take that relationship very seriously. We work very hard at it. In fact, we recently met as a Board with the chair of the NBN and the acting CEO just to demonstrate the significance of that relationship and to hear firsthand at a Board level how the chair and acting CEO of that relationship thinks about the relationship with Telstra. I know Vicki and other members of the senior management team spend a significant time on that because we actually have to partner together to deliver the outcomes that you expect as consumers.
I think I’ve answered all the comments and questions that you made but I think the point you’ve raised on scams is a really, really important one and we’re working as hard as we can with government and others to protect as many of Australians as we can. Thank you.
Nathan Burley: We’ll now return to online questions. This question is by Peter Caloiero. Why is it in the past two years Telstra’s mobile plans increased in price at a higher rate than Telstra’s costs?
Craig Dunn: From time to time we do increase or make price changes on our mobile plans and we did that more recently. I’ll just make the point, or the first point I’d make is we do make those decisions very carefully and they’re very considered decisions, especially in the current climate, and I referred to this in my opening remarks, when the cost of living pressures are so acute, and I also mentioned that there’s a whole range of programs or initiatives that we undertake to support Australians who may be doing it tough to stay connected. One of those is our base Starter mobile plan where we provide a significant discount to pensioners and veterans, and indeed, that plan, the pricing of that plan did not increase in our recent plan increases, and in fact, we also provide greater data for that plan.
Price changes, as I said, are never very welcome by customers. Having said that, it’s been very clear in the meeting today that quite rightly your standards are very high, and I talked about in my opening remarks, as Vicki did, about the criticality of connectivity. It’s almost an essential service to every Australian because of the way we rely on that. Now, what does that mean for Telstra and our shareholders? That means we have to make very long-term, large investments with capital to deliver on that standard that you expect, and I think Vicki may have mentioned in her opening remarks over the last 10 years we’ve spent more than $40 billion in capital to deliver that outcome.
To attract the capital that’s necessary to make that investment requires an adequate return from shareholders, and I mentioned that in my opening remarks, and if we’re going to keep investing the amount of capital that’s required to deliver the leading mobile network and the quality of service you expect in terms of the network, then from time to time we need to make those price changes to give us the confidence to make that investment.
I should say - sorry, just to finish, and I understand that price changes are not ideal, particularly in the current environment, but if you look back over the last 10 years, telco prices have been rising at a much slower rate than inflation.
Nathan Burley: Our next online question is from Diane Denise Green. This is a comment rather than a question. I am so relieved I didn’t travel to the city to attend the meeting. I was expecting insightful questions and answers. I am listening to gripes, which I must say have been addressed in a patient and respectful manner. The Telstra Board has given great presentations, the underlying Telstra business is clearly being well managed thank you to the Board and senior management team.
Craig Dunn: Okay. Thank you. I’ll take that. I appreciate that comment. I also am very respectful this is the one opportunity that retail shareholders get an opportunity to stand up and give your thoughts and views on the Board and we take that really seriously. So, we appreciate your participation and coming here today or being online and asking those questions, but also I’m very grateful for your comments, Deanne. Thank you.
Nathan Burley: The next online question is from Peter Caloiero. Since the Optus data breach, has Telstra increased its own data security and if so, how?
Craig Dunn: Cybersecurity is obviously something we take very seriously. Keeping Australians safe is at the heart of everything we do. We’ve got very capable people who work tirelessly to protect our critical infrastructure and your data and we have significantly increased our investment in cybersecurity in recent times. I mentioned in one of my other answers to an earlier question our Audit and Risk Committee met again yesterday, it meets regularly, and we spent a lot of time on cybersecurity, as we pretty well do at almost every Audit and Risk Committee. It’s really important that we get that right.
I should also say we’re always learning. The challenge with this area is that there are some really bad actors from different parts around the world with very significant resources who are constantly attacking enterprises and customers and trying to take advantage of them. With a really sophisticated cyber attack with those sort of resources, arguably no company is immune to that risk. So, it is something we take very seriously.
When other companies do have the unfortunate experience of being breached, we learn from those. It’s virtually the first question management expect to get from the Audit and Risk Committee the following meeting. We’ve seen a data breach here, how are we dealing with it, how do we know that we’re protected from that same breach? I just want to reassure you we understand how important it is to our customers. In fact, we understand how important it is to our country given the importance of the network to Australia, and we’re really supportive of working with government and other corporations to make our country as strong and as well protected as we can from cyber attacks.
Nathan Burley: We’ll return to the floor. We have a question at microphone number 3.
Female Moderator: Chair, I have a question from Al Marshall. Thank you.
Al Marshall: (Shareholder) The two most frequent topics that have come up today have been priority assistance and call centre services. So, I have a question for Ms Brady and a question for Mr Ackland. Priority assistance is the legislative mandatory requirement for which Telstra gets nearly $300 million in taxpayers’ money each year. Mr Ackland, how was that spent last year on repair, replacement, and upgrades? And while you get those data, my question is a simple one for Ms Brady, it’s a true-or-false question. If I heard you correctly, Mr Dunn, you conceded that Telstra still has call centres overseas, in Manila and Mumbai?
Craig Dunn: We take some - we do take some calls from overseas, but as I said…
Al Marshall: (Shareholder) True or false?
Craig Dunn: Yes, we do take some calls overseas but if you don’t mind, I just want to give justice to your question. The vast majority of calls by consumers and small businesses are now taken in Australia.
Al Marshall: (Shareholder) Right. On 20 May when Ms Brady put the boot into 2,800 Telstra workers, she said: we have listened to our customers and returned all our call centres to Australia. Repeat the last six words: all our call centres to Australia. Today, Mr Dunn, you’ve conceded we still have call centres overseas. As Ms Brady has known, she also has a call centre in Hyderabad.
Ten days after she made that statement we have returned all our call centres to Australia, I spent a weekend dealing with four faults staff in Hyderabad. Now, just to be sure they’re in Hyderabad, I asked them in English and in Hindi where they worked and they all confirmed they worked in Hyderabad. Ms Brady, true or false, on 20 May when you said we have listened to our customers and returned all our call centres to Australia, was that true or false?
Craig Dunn: Thank you for your question, sir. You’ve asked a range of questions and Vicki is very, very careful with her language. I’ll ask Vicki to respond if you’d like to, Vicki, but do you want to comment on that, Vicki, just to address the gentleman’s question?
Vicki Brady: Yes. Thank you for your questions. It was I think 21 May when we made the announcements. What I have consistently said is we’ve returned answering our consumer and small business calls to Australia. We do have teams that do escalated faults still based in our offshore locations and our teams that do online chat for customers. That’s the position and where we’re at.
Al Marshall: (Shareholder) As of today, we have returned all our call centres to Australia. True or false?
Vicki Brady: Consumer…
Craig Dunn: Sir, I think Vicki has answered the question. I think we’ve been really clear that the great bulk of calls from consumers and small businesses are taken in Australia. There are certain fault lines that require a different approach and some of those are still based offshore. I hear your feedback so we’ve taken that onboard. Can I go to your other comments, if I may, that you raised in your questions?
Al Marshall: (Shareholder) Priority assistance.
Craig Dunn: Well, I think we’ve answered the question you’ve asked. The point on - you talked about Priority Assist and so we do have an obligation that we take very seriously, which was discussed before, and so I acknowledge that commitment is very important. I think the number you referred to is a broader obligation. We have a universal service obligation which has a range of different things that we’re compensated by the Federal Government for. That includes, for example, effectively making fixed line access available to all Australians. We largely do that through the NBN footprint but for aspects of Australia that aren’t served by NBN fibre or fixed wireless, we have an obligation to sustain a copper network.
Now, the point that we’ve been making more recently is with the advent of LEO satellites and so Starlink is a good example of that, in our view that’s a much better technology and is proving to be so to provide the sort of phone access in remote Australia. Copper is an ageing technology. It’s very hard to sustain its reliability and so part of that obligation that you referred to goes well beyond Priority Assist.
The position that we’ve been starting to discuss with government - and Vicki, you may like to add to this - is that obligation was decided upon many, many years ago and the technology footprint we have today is very, very different. We think it’s in the national interest and our interest to reform the USO and that’s what we’re starting to discuss with government. Vicki, did you want to add to that in any particular way?
Vicki Brady: Yes. If I could add a couple of comments, because you raise a point that that number you’ve quoted is a broader number. It’s not related to Priority Assist. The biggest part of that is our universal service obligation which relates to providing fixed line voice services outside of the NBN’s fixed footprint. That involves about 7% to 8% of the country, and today under that legislation that is many decades old, we are required to keep copper services running where they are available in that footprint.
So, that’s what the bulk of those funds relate to. We’ve been very clear with shareholders and with government, we’re trying to minimise the loss on that to less than $100 million per annum, so we’re working very constructively as the government goes through consultation on modernising those universal service obligations.
Al Marshall: (Shareholder) [unclear] about the data?
Craig Dunn: I think, sir, we’ve answered that question. I think the point is on the USO it covers much more broader things than Priority Assist, and frankly, the outcome we have with the current arrangement is not economic for you as shareholders, and that’s the point Vicki is making. We would like to renegotiate that in a way that provides a good outcome for Australia and Australian consumers and also, importantly, a good outcome for Australian shareholders - Telstra shareholders, rather, and the new technologies should allow us to do that. Thank you, Sir.
Nathan Burley: We’ll go to microphone number 2.
Female Moderator: Chair, I have Bruce Bennett with a question.
Bruce Bennett: (Shareholder) Mr Chair, thank you for your time to answer my question. My question is in relation to the rollout of the 5G broadband service, but before I say that I’d like to say that the service I’ve had from your call centres has been excellent, the Australian-based ones. I’m also very impressed with the lack of outages that Telstra as an organisation has had, unlike some of your competitors, and also the data security that you provide that some of your other competitors haven’t been able to do. So, while there’s been some criticism of the Company, I’m very happy with the overall business.
However, my concern relates to a bit of the future and the fact that I’m now being offered 5G broadband by your competitors, mainly because my NBN service is on the - is it HFC or HCF cable? That always goes out, it’s always constantly, and I ring up Telstra and say and they say look, I’m sorry we can’t do much, it’s the NBN. In the old days, when I had my old mobile service, Telstra ran the whole show. If there was a problem they would look at it at the exchange, they would send someone out to my house, and it was just perfect. It just never - it just kept on going, boom, boom, boom, boom.
Now, is it the NBN problem, is it the HFC, is it this? I’m really keen to move across to your 5G broadband. That will mean I won’t have a landline but I don’t need a landline. All I - as the other questioner said, all my landline gets is all these scam callers - I’m from the NBN, I hear you’ve had an outage, and all they do is look at where the Telstra outages have been and they ring you up and say you’ve had an outage, we’re going to - and NBN does nothing to prevent people calling.
They blame - oh, you’ve got to talk to Telstra, but there’s nothing on their network, on their advertising to tell people NBN never calls you. It’s a terrible organisation. So, I’m saying I would love to be able to adopt a 5G broadband service. Your competitors are already offering that to me. What’s your plans to roll out that 5G broadband service and allow people to move away quickly from the NBN? Thank you.
Craig Dunn: Thank you, Mr Bennett. There are clearly, even as a part of that broader NBN network, there are some technologies that still aren’t ideal, and that can be challenging. On fixed broadband, that essentially means you can use mobile to beam into your home and that becomes your fixed broadband rather than using fibre or whatever, clearly you understand that. We are rolling that out to some extent. It’s not available to every suburb and every street. It does depend on the capacity to put small cells in your street, for example, which is not always straightforward with local councils. So, if you don’t mind, sir, it would be good to speak to you after the meeting and understand your physical location.
Bruce Bennett: (Shareholder) My point is that your competitors are currently offering it.
Craig Dunn: Understand.
Bruce Bennett: (Shareholder) And I’m worried that Telstra is falling behind in what - the market is changing. You’re doing great stuff with Starlink but your major risk is as consumers get fed up with NBN, you’re going to lose market share in that segment.
Craig Dunn: Understand, Mr Bennett. Look, there are a range of considerations that we have to take into account when we consider whether we offer fixed broadband and how broadly we offer it across the country. That’s not always straightforward. I hear your point and we’re very conscious of that. We have rolled more of that service out to more Australians across the country but very happy to speak you to after. I hear your point on the competition but also very happy for someone to speak to you after the meeting and understand your location and let you know whether that’s our intention or not. Thank you.
Nathan Burley: We’ll take our next question from microphone number 3.
Female Moderator: Thank you. Chair, I have Allan Carter with a question. Thank you.
Allan Carter: (Shareholder) Good morning. We’ve heard a lot of the positive results of the financials over the last three years. When do you envisage that will flow on to the share price?
Craig Dunn: Let me deal with that question. It’s a very good one. First point I’d make is we share your desire as a Board and senior management team, and I don’t make that comment lightly to drive up the value of the enterprise, Telstra. We have seen that come through in higher dividends. I talked about earlier about how the dividend has grown, compound annual growth over 4% over the last three years, and that is a function of the improved financial performance.
I will come to your answer, sir. I understand that the share price this year hasn’t achieved the same outcomes as some others have on the market. That’s a fair point. Share prices are a function of a range of different things. Sometimes they’re outside of our control. Defensive stocks, which is the sort of category that Telstra sits within like some other infrastructure companies haven’t done as well as other stocks this year, and being very clear with you, the performance of our Enterprise business this year, which was disappointing, hasn’t helped that price.
Having said all that, I understand your point. As I said before, senior management is very much aligned to get that outcome for you as shareholders. Around 50% of Vicki’s target pay, if you like, and that of the senior management team is expected to be paid in some form of equity. 75% of variable remuneration that Vicki is entitled to is paid in some form of equity and the majority of that will only vest, as I said earlier, if we deliver total shareholders returns that exceed a relevant hurdle.
I would also say that in addition to try and maximise your alignment on the point that you’ve made with the alignment of the senior management team and the Board, we also have minimum shareholder requirements that we need to meet. Vicki and Michael, for example, own more Telstra shares than 99% of our shareholders, so they are totally aligned in terms of that with you. We also - and you may be familiar with this so I’m sorry if I’m telling you what you already know - we also have minimum shareholder requirements for Directors, Non-Executive Directors, again to cause maximum alignment with your interest in improving the value of the stock or share price over time.
For the Directors that held office over the past 12 months, their average shareholders was greater than 90% of the number of shares - sorry, was greater than shares held by 90% of our shareholders. So, I understand your point. We’re working very hard to improve our financial performance but I do want to reemphasise we’re very much aligned with what you want to see as a shareholder. That’s how we’ve structured the remuneration of our management team and that’s how we’re aligned in terms of the requirements to hold shares just like you do.
Allan Carter: (Shareholder) Thank you. It would be good to see it go back towards the $7 mark.
Craig Dunn: I hear you. Thank you, sir.
Nathan Burley: Our next question is from microphone number 1.
Female Moderator: Chair, I have Kaz Kazim with a question.
Kaz Kazim: (Shareholder) I would just like to raise the issue that you raised, that Telstra and other telcos haven’t raised their prices by as much as they have more recently. If you look at some of the evidence, critically acclaimed evidence issued by OECD, that some of the people working in Australia had the largest and the steepest decline in earning capacity, and some of those people are like fire workers, firemen, nurses, police officers, and these are the people who are affected. They hold the community safe, et cetera, et cetera, but when you increase these prices, how often do you think of those that might be affected adversely? I don’t see any declines in your Directors’ fees or anybody else on the Board, or Vicki.
The other thing I’d like to see is a program of customer service training. How do you train them? Is there regular training? Because my time goes right back to when I first attended an AGM, was when the American Sol Trujillo was in charge, and then I dealt with - it was David Thodey and then Catherine Livingstone was there for a while. I’ve forgotten whether she was Chairman or CEO but she did.
Now we are here, and we’re still hearing the same problems about customer service. I mean, your increase in advertising has gone up, but the service hasn’t. I don’t want to bag some of the things that you’ve done. I think environmental issues like decreased emissions, et cetera, is excellent.
But I think if you improve the customer service, you can easily decline the expenditure in advertising, because word of mouth is a terrific service. Go and see Vicki or meet somebody at the store. That word of mouth is far more reliable as an indicator of good customer service than spending millions and saying, what a terrific company we are, but the service doesn’t add up.
Craig Dunn: Okay, sir. I think you’ve made that point before. So, I don’t think I can answer it any differently than I did before. Again, I hear you on customer service. We have more to do. But the facts are, since 2021, over the last three years, the number of complaints from consumers and small businesses about Telstra to the telecommunications ombudsman have fallen by two thirds.
Does that mean our customer service is where it needs to be? No, it’s not. It’s clearly not, and we’ve got more to do. But we’ve invested very significantly. We’ve made significant changes, and I think that’s a very good barometer to demonstrate that we are making progress, notwithstanding that we’ve got more progress to make, as you’ve clearly enunciated.
Kaz Kazim: (Shareholder) Exhausted the – enquiries, it’s not producing the results it should. Anyway, I’d like to be able to get your emails, Vicki and you, so I can send you some paper and literature to read on.
Craig Dunn: Very happy to have you share that with us after the meeting, sir. Thank you.
Nathan Burley: We will return to online questions. This question is another question from Bruce Bebbington. Missed appointments for repairs impact customer experience and also are at a cost to Telstra. The Customer Service Guarantee Standard stipulates that if an appointment can’t be met, the customer should be advised and that a penalty is payable if this does not occur or there is no attendance. What number of missed appointments are being experienced, and has this increased or decreased, and what is the total cost of CSG payments for these? I also note that Telstra has refused to pay us for any missed appointments. Why?
Craig Dunn: So, thank you, sir. So, the customer service obligations, or requirements, are very clear under the law. If we don’t honour those, then also the penalties or requirements for us to pay a fine are very clear under the law. We honour those penalties. We may be talking about slightly different information or data, but recently, as a part of – I can’t remember, it’s a recent Board paper or Audit and Risk Committee – we do measure or keep account of the number of credits that we’re required to give back to customers more generally.
Consistent – I know everyone’s not happy with the service we deliver just yet – consistent with the reduction in complaints to the ombudsman that I talked about, that number has dramatically declined over the last few years. So, again, sir, though, if you feel like we’re not honouring that obligation, that is obviously important feedback for me. We’re very happy to follow that up with you after the meeting.
Nathan Burley: Our next is another online question from Joe Alvaro. As a Telstra shareholder and customer, I do not consider customer service issues as gripes, but some of the most important issues that the Board should be paying attention to. Good service is good business, less poor publicity and increased profit. On this subject, why is a simple phone number not clearly visible on the Telstra website so customers can easily access a live person when they have problems? Surely customer service issues can be reduced by allowing customers easy and fast access to help when they need it.
Craig Dunn: So, again, thank you for your feedback, sir. We certainly will review that. Again, I don’t think I can add much more to the comments I’ve made more generally on customer service. I would just say, though, as a part of the scorecard that we use each year to benchmark senior management’s performance, on that scorecard we include episode net promoter scores, which is feedback from customers, rating by customers on whether that service has improved or not. That’s included in the scorecard. If we do well on that, or management do well on that, that supports their variable remuneration. If they don’t, it doesn’t.
Nathan Burley: Our next online question is from Stephen Mayne. Competitor TPG yesterday announced the $5.25 billion sale of its fibre assets to focus, which is controlled by Macquarie Fund after being privatised a few years ago. Did we bid for these assets, or were we not allowed to on competition grounds? What, if anything, will this transaction mean for our business and for the wider industry?
Craig Dunn: Again, thank you for your questions, Mr Mayne. We don’t normally comment on whether we participate in transactions or not. But given it’s happened, or been announced, make it very clear that we didn’t participate in that process. I suspect the ACCC would not have allowed us to, in any event.
As regards what it might mean for Telstra more broadly, obviously we take the competition that we operate against very seriously. We never take them for granted. That may or may not change, that competitive dynamic. Obviously, our focus is on providing the greatest value we can to customers. In terms of our InfraCo Fixed business, shareholders may recall that we made a decision over the last 12 months or so – I can’t remember the exact period when we made that decision, Vicki – to retain the ownership in that business. Vicki’s clearly enunciated why we made that decision.
Part of that is the commentary that both Vicki and I talked about early in the meeting, in our opening remarks, about how important connectivity is, and the growth in data and AI. If you think about all of those things, we don’t deliver the outcomes that consumers want, or businesses want, without great connectivity that requires investment.
So, we actually think one of the tailwinds we’ve got at the moment, if you like, is that growth in data and the demand for data, and what that means for our business. People will take different views on the transaction that was announced yesterday. One view is it just reinforces the value of that business for you as shareholders, and reinforces the decision management made to retain it.
Nathan Burley: We’ll do one more online question. This is yet another question from Bruce Bebbington. The copper continuality obligation as part of the USO is what requires that, as the CEO correctly stated, a requirement to maintain copper. Last AGM, I raised our forced migration to 3G NGWL, which was stopped by the chairman. The CEO complaints team have stated, Telstra will not repair your landline, and we are currently being forced to Starlink satellite. Until the USO review is determined, why is Telstra refusing to repair the copper network and continually force customers to satellite?
Craig Dunn: So, firstly, we’ve got very clear legal obligations under the USO, as Vicki and I both talked about, to retain the copper service. So, if you feel like we haven’t done that, I’m very happy to take that feedback on board after the meeting. Can I just talk about satellite, because I appreciate that people don’t like making change. But we have tested the propensity, or the capacity, for satellite to deliver better services, particularly to remote Australia under a series of different weather events. Most of you will know copper and water don’t mix well.
We do believe that LEO satellites can improve the quality of the service that can be provided, particularly to remote Australians. That’s something that we’re taking very seriously. We offer the Starlink Fixed Broadband service. We’re in further negotiations with other satellite companies. So, we do think, as hard as it is changing technology – I know as I get older, changing technology gets more and more frustrating, and people don’t like change – but some of these newer technologies are going to lead to much better outcomes for our customers. Obviously, we need to work with the community to help them understand that, and help our customers transition to those better technologies.
Nathan Burley: We’ll go back to the floor. Microphone number three.
Female Moderator: Chair, I have Ericka Van Aalst with a question. Thank you.
Ericka Van Aalst: (Shareholder) Thank you. Just going back to the question I asked earlier, which was not answered. I was asking about Telstra’s systematic failure dealing with complex complaints, and is that an inherent problem. It was very nice of you to say that you’ll have someone speak to me after the meeting. Thank you for that. But that really – I had that six years ago. That could be seen as just brushing this matter again under the carpet. With respect to you, I’m just saying it could be seen like that.
We have heard a lot of people, there’s quite a few shareholders here with concerns about how Telstra’s handling the customer’s complaints. I really would like an answer to that question, is this an inherent question? For example, what percentage or number of complaints brought to Telstra by their customers have not been resolved after, say, three months? Does anyone have those statistics? I mean, with respect, to tell us, and you’ve said it twice, that the TIO, complaints taken about Telstra to the TIO have been reduced, I think it was two thirds.
That all sounds very nice, but we have to remember that the TIO is an industry-funded ombudsman. It is not a government ombudsman, and that does not necessarily reflect on Telstra that Telstra has improved their game. It could simply reflect what a mess the TIO has been, and anybody who has tried to go through the TIO might like to also speak about that. So, that doesn’t necessarily reflect upon Telstra. I mean, I’ve been listening here today, I didn’t realise you could talk for a little bit longer, I had my two-minute speech prepared before.
But you know, here I am after six years. I don’t know if other people may be also like me in the shareholder audience, but besides everything else, I’m supposed to be a priority-assist person. I’ve got no working phone, and no internet. So, with respect about the TIO doesn’t do it for me, and I would like an answer to the question. Very nice of you to have someone speak to me afterwards, but I really want to know, and I think the shareholders have a right to know, is this an inherent problem? What percentage or number of complaints brought to Telstra about Telstra are unresolved after, like, three months? Thank you.
Craig Dunn: Okay. Thank you, again, for your question. I think it’s very similar to your earlier question and I don’t discount the importance of it, and I understand your frustration. When we do meet with you after the meeting, we take that very seriously. We will take your feedback on board. Can I also assure you that we do, as a Board, we get a regular update on customer service, on complaints, on the time it takes our call centre to answer the phone, a range of different issues.
We have a report on our Board meeting later this afternoon. All that data is provided to the Board. We look at it very seriously. I appreciate you’re not happy with your service. I understand your frustration. I’ve committed for someone to meet you after the meeting. We take it very seriously. We know we’ve got more to do. We’re investing very heavily to improve customer outcomes.
Nathan Burley: Microphone number two.
Female Moderator: Chair, I have Enzo Prata with a question.
Enzo Prata: (Shareholder) Good morning, Mr Chairman. My name is Enzo Prata, I am a shareholder. When Optus suffered its security data breach a couple of years ago, the main problem was that on its network it had a trove of customer data that, in my view, should not have been there. For example, [a telco] has every right to ask a new customer for identification purposes, what is their driver licence number or passport ID.
That’s fine. But once the customer has been identified, this data should not be kept on file. So, my question is, what are we doing about this? Do we have customer data on file, potentially vulnerable to a security attack? No matter how strong our cyber security protections are. Or do we delete this data, so as I said, there’s nothing to steal?
Craig Dunn: Thank you, sir, it’s a very good question. So, as I said before, when, unfortunately, others – either in Australia or elsewhere – do suffer from a cyber security incident, we take it very seriously and seek to learn from that. Regarding data storage, so, one of the challenges we have is there is certain data under the law – and unfortunately the laws differ by state – that requires us to keep certain data, whether we would like to or not. So, we have legal obligations that means we don’t have a choice. But I take your point, particularly the data you refer to, it’s really important that we do our very best to store that securely, make sure it’s encrypted.
We did a review following the Optus breach. We’ve further sought to improve procedures, tighten procedures, remove data that doesn’t need to be held. So, we’re very much focused on that, because like you say – as I said earlier in my comments – despite very significant investment in cyber security, no company’s immune to that risk. So, you’ve asked a very good question, and we’re working really hard to make sure we only store data that we need to keep to meet our legal obligations or service obligations, and otherwise remove it from our systems.
Enzo Prata: (Shareholder) Thank you very much. Just a quick…
Craig Dunn: Of course.
Enzo Prata: (Shareholder) …clarification. This data that we need to keep for legal reasons, it is stored offline so that an attack over the internet cannot access it?
Craig Dunn: It depends. Some of that data can be stored offline. Some of it makes our customer service response very difficult to do in an effective way, because often, unfortunately, for privacy point of view, we may need to identify you in a secure way. Therefore, we may need access to that data. We had that very question at the Audit and Risk Committee yesterday when we were discussing this issue, if we can keep some data offline because it’s not needed regularly and it’s very secure and we need to maintain its privacy, then from time to time we’ll do that.
Enzo Prata: (Shareholder) Thank you very much.
Craig Dunn: Thank you.
Nathan Burley: Microphone number three.
Female Moderator: Chair, I have Al Marshall with a question. Thank you.
Al Marshall: (Shareholder) If Miss Van Else hasn’t had a priority-assist for more than two working days, Telstra’s required under the Industry Code to escalate the issue, and after ten working days to report it to ACMA. Correct? Section 4.7.2 of the Industry Code.
Craig Dunn: So, sir, if you don’t mind just addressing questions through the Chair of the meeting, that’s how it’s going to work most effectively. So, again, we’ll meet with Erica after the meeting. Sorry, Erica, if I’m – how I should call you by that, if you’re okay if I call you by your first name. We understand the obligations there, we take those very seriously. If we’re not meeting that obligation, obviously we need to remediate that with some urgency.
Al Marshall: (Shareholder) So, on the question of complains, Miss Brady writes in her CEO message, in FY21, we set an ambitious target to halve TIO referral complaints in FY25. In FY24, we exceeded the target, reduced them by more than two thirds. Our group episode NPS bracket ENPS score of plus 46 exceeded our F2Y of plus 44. Could Miss Brady put that in English, please? Plain English.
Craig Dunn: Why don’t I try and see whether I’m speaking the same language. I appreciate some of that is not straightforward. So, net promoter scores are a fairly well accepted methodology that are used by a large number of companies to try and make an as objective assessment as possible about how customers feel about the service they’ve been receiving. So, these are customers making comments.
Episode NPS refers to an episode. So, for example, we will measure NPS for putting on a new service or disconnecting a service. So, they are judgements made by our customers. Part of the reason we use NPS is it’s an objective measure to determine whether we’re making progress there or not. So, that’s the score that we use.
As I said before, that is in the scorecard that we use for executive remuneration, and it’s a very well-known and well-accepted measure across Australia, in terms of corporates and how they measure their improvement in customer service. I don’t know whether that helps you or not, or whether you think that was in English or otherwise.
Al Marshall: (Shareholder) What would help, I’m a plain run-of-the-mill economist, so I’m used to dealing with numbers. What were the total number of complaints received by Telstra in the last 12 months? How many of them were enhanced, that is, not solved, within 10 working days? How many were raised to the Office of the CEO Complaints Team? How many were raised to the Office of the CEO, Vicki? How many did you personally respond to? I have in mind [David Thodey’s] record here.
Craig Dunn: So, thank you again, sir. So, obviously, Vicki, as I do, has a lot of visibility of some of these complaints. I think the point you’re both making is, you have a high-level score as one thing and a measure. The other question is, anecdotally, what sort of experience are customers getting? I hear that. Vicki’s very close to that. Again, we take it very seriously. I accept that we're not delivering the service outcomes that you expect, and we've got more work to do.
Al Marshall: (Shareholder) The numbers, Vicki?
Craig Dunn: So those numbers that you talked about, as I said, a whole range of information on customer complaints comes through to the Board. We review that quite regularly. There are certain things that we share annually and with others and externally. As I said, we've talked about the complaints to the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman. I think that's a very good way of benchmarking how we're performing. So, thank you.
Al Marshall: (Shareholder) If Vicki won't answer it, who's Telstra's Chief Complaints Officer, please?
Craig Dunn: So, I think we've dealt with your questions, sir. I think we've given you plenty of time. I understand your points are very serious. So, I think I'd like to move on to another question. Thank you.
Nathan Burley: Craig, we'll take our next question from microphone number 2.
Female Moderator: Chair, I have Peter Starr with a question.
Peter Starr: (Shareholder) Thanks, Craig. I’d just like to say to Sue, thanks for your service and time. You've been a great Company Secretary. Thank you for fixing a few matters on behalf of my clients and myself and I wish you all the best. Likewise, to you, sir. You've done a great job and thank you so much for your service.
The question. Some months ago, our CEO, Vicki, attended and she's attended a number of cyber security things. I've been present at one or two of those. So, I'd just like to ask through you, Craig, to Vicki, if she could maybe elaborate for the shareholders of what's actually being done, that new cyber security centre in Canberra that's been set up. Also, about that, there's a scam number. So, if you get a scam text, ladies and gentlemen, there is a number you can report it straight to and they just deal with it.
Now, I was even unaware of that, given that I come from a financial background of some 20 years, but I'm grateful for Vicki. I said to Vicki, maybe we need to promote that a bit better for the shareholders and for the general population. But maybe if you could talk a little bit on some of those invites you've been to and what's been discussed, just in a brief for the shareholders. Thank you.
Craig Dunn: Thank you, Peter. Given you're referring to meetings that both you and Vicki are in, and you think it's very good for Vicki to share that with shareholders, why don't I pass it across to you to do that, Vicki?
Vicki Brady: Yes, of course, and thanks, Peter, for your question. As Craig has mentioned today a couple of times, cybersecurity, it's obviously one of those top risks that we're focused on. It is an area where no single organisation can solve it on its own. So, we are heavily engaged with government agencies, with other cross-sector industries to be able to come together to solve it. You mentioned, I think, our cybersecurity operations centres. This is where we bring our best-in-class people together. They are monitoring, they are assessing threats and playing a very important role for our customers, for our network, but also working with, as I said, across the country to help defend the country from a cyber point of view.
It's something we take incredibly seriously, we invest a lot in, and I'm very grateful for the talent that we have inside our organisation that work 24/7 on this. As Craig said, it’s not an area you can ever be complacent. It is an area that's ever-changing, and the criminals that we're fighting against are also deploying new technologies and a lot of resources. So, this ability to work across the country to help protect customers is critical. From a customer standpoint, the things that we recommend to our customers is clearly being very cautious of any calls and texts.
You mentioned the ability, if you do get scam SMSes, to forward them on to a number, 7226. It's our scam SMS number. If you're an iPhone user, you will see you can report it as a scam as well, and that will also come through to our teams as part of the process for helping to protect customers from those scams.
Peter Starr: (Shareholder) It's a very important issue for a lot of older Australians and shareholders in general, but just the wider community, I know that in talking to some of the CEOs of the major banks, it's their number one priority, given the customers being scammed and about remuneration back to customers. So, I think it's really critical that we're at the forefront there and for you as, the CEO, to attend those things and those briefings that you go to. So, thank you.
Craig Dunn: Thank you, Peter.
Female Moderator: Brian Upton with a question. Thank you.
Brian Upton: (Shareholder) Thank you. This is a short one on policy. I'm sure you'll be pleased to have a short one. Recently, I went into Castle Hill Store when I was going by just to inquire about returning some old Telstra phones. I was not greeted very well. The opinion – the lady who was there said, oh, no, we don't waste time with that anymore. That's not our policy. Go and find somewhere else. Now, is it your policy or not to collect your phones or have you just given up responsibility for that?
Craig Dunn: Thank you for your question, Mr Upton. That's – we take the recycling of phones very seriously. In fact, not everyone reads every page of our annual report, but there's a fairly significant amount of report that goes through our recycling program. That outcome is not an experience that is consistent with what you should have received, is my understanding. So, we need to follow that up.
Brian Upton: (Shareholder) [Unclear] that you ask all of your branches, your shops, to put a sign up in their window, we are pleased to receive phones and things for recycling. You can put a little smiley face if you like. Otherwise, if you decide against that, just put up a little sign that says, we at Telstra have no responsibility for anything that we've ever made in the past and that don't bother asking. So, I'll leave you to decide. I'm sure you can guarantee one or the other for me, will you?
Craig Dunn: I'm pretty sure you won't see that second sign.
Brian Upton: Well, can you guarantee to send out some – get them to [unclear] in their windows.
Craig Dunn: Look, I don’t mean to – yes, it’s an important issue. The environmental footprint we leave with our technology, we take very seriously. So, I'm really sorry that you've had that experience, and I'll take the feedback on board. If there's a better way that we can communicate our obligations and what we do there, we should absolutely do that. It's a very good point. So, thank you for raising it.
Brian Upton: (Shareholder) The other side of it is, if I don't see these signs going up, I'm liable to start telling people, they're not really responsible anymore.
Craig Dunn: No, I hear you, sir. Thank you.
Nathan Burley: Another question from microphone 3.
Female Moderator: Thank you. Chair, I have Al Marshall with a question. Thank you.
Al Marshall: (Shareholder) On priority assistance, when you ring 13 22 00 [or 03] and say priority assistance, priority fault, priority assistance fault, the IVR voice recognition system says back to you, sorry, I don't understand that phrase, please repeat. You do this five or six times and then 1300 22 00 hangs up on you. Could you explain that? Why doesn't Telstra have a specific 1300 22 [sic] number for priority assistance customers like Ms Van Else, Mr Bevington and us?
Craig Dunn: I'm sorry, sir, if that is your experience on our recorded messaging system that we need to remediate that and that's not appropriate. So, we take that obligation very seriously. I’ll take your feedback on board and make sure we double check that and address that. Thank you, sir.
Nathan Burley: Our next question will be from microphone number 2.
Female Moderator: Chair, I have Ivan Gantar with a question.
Ivan Gantar: (Shareholder) When it comes to infrastructure, who owns all the pits and cables and ducts? Is it Telstra or is it NBN or is it no one?
Craig Dunn: It's a good question, and you probably won't appreciate the answer, but it depends. So, I'm going to generalise to try and answer your question as best I can, but I'm just making the point that there may be exception to this. So, typically, the ducts, and I think there's over 370,000 kilometres of ducts…
Ivan Gantar: (Shareholder) Yes.
Craig Dunn: …are owned by Telstra. We've got 240,000 kilometres of fibre. A lot of that fibre can sit in those ducts. Some of the fibre that sits in those ducts will be now owned by NBN. This is an oversimplification, sorry, to think about it, but often the fibre that's the access fibre that's closer to the house or the premise of business is increasingly owned by NBN, where we tend to own the backhaul or the fibre that goes between city and city.
Ivan Gantar: (Shareholder) You also rent out the ducts to other optical fibre owners as well?
Craig Dunn: Yes. We do. So, part of the arrangement with the NBN, for example, is we lease the ducts to them. There's backhaul fibre that we lease to them. We lease exchanges and racks in exchanges. Part of the thinking or rationale behind the InfraCo business, if you like, is that increasingly different companies are doing different things in the value chain or from one end of the customer service process to the other.
So, we've thought about how we think about the business there, and increasingly we'll rent out our infrastructure to other participants in the industry in which we operate. Does that help?
Ivan Gantar: (Shareholder) When you get a – two or three years ago, I was at another annual meeting. I was at an annual meeting, and someone complained about a yellow plastic pit cover outside their house.
Craig Dunn: Yes.
Ivan Gantar: (Shareholder) Well, I was going to complain as well because I've had one outside my place for years and years, and all it needs is a new lid. Then the one across the road, they couldn't find a yellow pit cover, so they put a sheet of plywood that's been there for many years. So, these yellow plastic covers, they're only meant to be temporary, but they become permanent.
Craig Dunn: Yes, so, I'm happy to follow up that example on the plywood. That's just simply not appropriate if that's what you've seen. So, we should talk about that after the meeting.
Ivan Guntar: (Shareholder) I've seen them in a lot of places.
Craig Dunn: Yes, well, we have – just to be clear on this, we have 7.5 million pits around Australia.
Ivan Gantar: (Shareholder) I know.
Craig Dunn: So, that's a lot...
Ivan Gantar: (Shareholder) I know.
Craig Dunn: …and the approach we take to those, if there's a clear issue with them in terms of their serviceability or their production, we fix those and then we do that. We've got, in the Audit and Risk Committee, Brendon, who leads the infrastructure business, will regularly report on the standards we've set on meeting those pits and the like. The safety standards of those pits are obviously really important. So – and increasingly, the technology's changing. Sometimes, you may not like the yellow, I understand, but plastic is often a better outcome than some of the older technologies.
Ivan Gantar: (Shareholder) There’s nothing actually wrong with the pits themselves, because the one outside my place…
Craig Dunn: It's more the cover of the pit.
Ivan Gantar: (Shareholder) …an NBN contractor cracked the lid, instead of trying to get a new lid, just put a yellow plastic cover and just abandoned it.
Craig Dunn: Well, I won't go into the detail, but look, there's a large number of pits in Australia.
Ivan Gantar: (Shareholder) I know.
Craig Dunn: That's our responsibility. There are opportunities for you to contact Telstra if you feel like that's not being served well. It'd be great to have someone see you after the meeting and understand where you live, sir, so we can make sure that we're addressing that appropriately. We do take it seriously. It is a big challenge with so many pits. As I said, Brendon does regularly report on the Audit and Risk Committee in terms of the progress we're making there.
Ivan Gantar: (Shareholder) I agree with Telstra holding onto InfraCo and the artificial intelligence and that is going to be a big boom business? Just as data centres are popping up everywhere.
Craig Dunn: We agree with you, sir. We think that's a significant...
Ivan Gantar: (Shareholder) So, there's got to be a big future demand in optical fibres.
Craig Dunn: We agree with you, sir, and that's why we've made the decision we have.
Ivan Gantar: (Shareholder) [Unclear]. It makes a lot of sense.
Craig Dunn: Yes, great. Thank you.
Nathan Burley: We'll return to online questions. We have yet another question from Joe Alvaro. When a complaint is made online on the Telstra website, customers get a message that they will receive a response in 15 days after the complaint is submitted. Surely it is inappropriate to make customers wait for 15 days for a response. This, in fact, is high-risk behaviour. Is the Telstra Board serious about improving customer service, given this wait time is communicated to customers who need help? Could this aspect of the service be reviewed as a matter of urgency?
Craig Dunn: Thank you, sir. Well, again, we'll take your feedback on board. Again, for the people that are making questions online, just as the same for the people in the audience, if you do have a customer inquiry that relates to your personal circumstances, there are people here to help you, and that's similar with the questions online.
Nathan Burley: We'll go to the next question online. This one is again from Stephen Mayne. Elon Musk is actively promoting misinformation on Twitter in his attempt to help Donald Trump win the upcoming US election, raising questions about his suitability to do business with. What is the scale of our current dealings with Musk-controlled businesses such as Starlink, Tesla, SpaceX and Twitter? Could this come to a point where it is too toxic to deal with him based on his increasingly erratic behaviour? Do we advertise on Twitter or have Teslas in our vehicle fleet?
Craig Dunn: So thank you for that question, Mr Mayne. Obviously different people have a right to take political views and express those views in whatever way they choose to. That's their right in Australia, and that's their right in the United States. I mean, SpaceLink, or certainly Starlink, are very important partners of ours.
We do think the satellite technology that's going to be made available through Starlink, as I said earlier, can substantially improve the customer service outcomes, particularly in remote and regional Australia, where it's very difficult to deal with that in a terrestrial way. So our focus in working with Starlink, for example, and other satellite providers is to improve outcomes for our customers.
Nathan Burley: Our next question is from, again, Bruce Bebbington. Mobile phone access from Cocos Keeling Islands. The Regional Telecommunications Review online consultation, Telstra advised it needed to build a subsea cable to provide these mobile services to 800 residents. What is the likely cost of building 2,930 kilometres of subsea cable and time to build? Why isn't Telstra using Starlink, as it is already doing for remote towers instead of using microwave radio or optic fibre. What time frame and cost savings to the Company of using Starlink rather than subsea cables?
Craig Dunn: So, I'm not familiar with that particular location, but I can imagine that the cost of laying that much fibre under the sea would be not - we're not able to justify that, and that, as you said, satellite would be a much better choice. We'll take that on board and review that and make sure we understand why Starlink's not available, because it seems to me that would be the obvious answer.
Nathan Burley: Our next question online is yet another one from Bruce Bebbington. What is the annual cap on the number of - or distance of copper lines that Telstra can connect under the Universal Service Obligation? How many copper lines or distance have been closed in the last year and in the last five years?
Craig Dunn: So as I understand it, there's no cap on the number of active or in-use lines that Telstra can disconnect under the USO. I think we've talked about earlier about our obligations under that copper requirement under the USO. I don't know, Vicki, is there anything you'd further like to add to that question?
Vicki Brady: Yes, if I could just add one thing to that. As I said earlier, our USO obligations for copper-based voice services, they apply outside of the NBN's fixed technology footprint for the NBN. So our - that's about 7% to 8% of Australians inside NBN's footprint where they have fixed technology available to deliver NBN services. There are no caps on our ability to cancel and move off copper.
Craig Dunn: Great, thank you Vicki.
Nathan Burley: We have a few more questions from the floor, microphone number 1.
Female Moderator: Chair, I have Don who would like to ask a question.
Don: (Shareholder) Mr Chairman, one more question [from me]. Some time ago, it was announced on the media that people in the Northern Territory were taking out plans, a lot of - and it affected a lot of people. I'm amazed our person who did the [Return to Country] didn't mention this, but a lot of her people, and they took these plans out and they just couldn't afford them.
Now, the staff there were on high commissions, but the higher the plans, the greater the number of plans, the more money they can make. This used to go on a lot in the Telstra shops. Honestly, now that Telstra has taken over all these shops, is this still going to happen, that people will be pushed into plans that they cannot afford? Or are staff going to be put on salaries, annual salaries? Thank you, sir.
Craig Dunn: Thank you, sir. So some years ago, we did have a regulatory interaction where we weren't representing the plans that were being marketed with Indigenous Australians was inappropriate, and that was not a good outcome for the customer, and we've dealt with that. To go to your point, sir, part of the reason that we took full ownership back of the stores was to have greater control over the customer experience.
Following that regulatory intervention and clearly where we did have suboptimal outcomes that shouldn't have happened for Indigenous Australians or First Nations people in the Northern Territory and other places. We did review the way we remunerate or compensate people in our stores and fundamentally changed the way that happens so that there was much less risk of misalignment, if you like, in terms of working on the customer's behalf versus our employees.
So you've raised a very important point. We've sought to change those outcomes and take it very seriously. We do have constant reviews that come to the Audit Risk Committee to satisfy ourselves that we've got that right.
Don: (Shareholder) So, they'll be on annual salaries? They will be on annual salaries from now on?
Craig Dunn: As I understand it, they still have some small incentive, which is a range and mix of things. I'm looking to the relevant executive. As I understand, we don't pay direct commissions for a particular sale, but there's a balanced scorecard of a range of metrics on how we deal with our customers. You've - it absolutely goes to your point, sir. We made those changes because of the outcomes that were suboptimal before and shouldn't have happened for the very reason you've said.
Don: (Shareholder) Thank you, sir.
Nathan Burley: Item number 2 is from microphone number 2.
Female Moderator: Chair, I have Brian Adams with a question.
Brian Adams: (Shareholder) Mr Chair, I just want to respond to the lady who wanted a statistic on Telstra fixing its complaints. I'd been - I've had a complaint with Telstra for over 18 months that every month that the bill comes in, it's never correct. It's always promised to be fixed. I must say that the ladies that I've dealt with, there are nine of them now that I've got the numbers of. They've always been very courteous and promised that they'd call back and tell me it's fixed. I've never had a call back from anyone.
So my complaints are ongoing about my account. I find it very difficult to get in via the computer, and if I phone up, I spend half an hour just waiting in order to speak to somebody. So that's the complaint section. Could you tell me, please, why Telstra has the temerity to charge me $2.50 every time I go into a Telstra store or I pay my bill at the post office. That's $60 a year and $2.50 for you to send me a hard copy of the bill.
Craig Dunn: Thank you, sir. Well, I did talk about that bill earlier in, so I won't repeat my answer. Just on the payment of - in Aussie Post stores or whatever, we charge you that because that's what we get charged to make that payment and make that access available. So I understand that you'd prefer not to make that payment. As I said on our bills before, we encourage people to use the digital service. I know that is not everyone's wish, but 70% of the customers that get a paper bill do not pay a fee because they're not in a position to use a digital service. I'm very happy for people to see you afterwards. I'm sorry for your customer experience. We try and be as fair as we can on our charges. We encourage people where they can to use a…
Brian Adams: (Shareholder) Well, I can [unclear].
Craig Dunn: …digital footprint because it lowers the cost for shareholders. Where they can't and it's not possible, we bear the cost.
Brian Adams: (Shareholder) Well, I haven't found that, and I've not found any satisfaction in asking why that it's charged. I've got, and I suppose I pay 20 accounts, and there isn't one of them that charges me $2.50 in order to pay them what I owe them.
Craig Dunn: Okay, I've heard you, sir. I'm just saying that's a cost to us. When we think about those costs, we have to think the fairest way to share those across the customers, and that's what we seek to do.
Brian Adams: (Shareholder) Telstra must be making a great amount of profit because I would be one of probably thousands that this would apply to.
Craig Dunn: Okay, thank you, sir.
Brian Adams: (Shareholder) Okay.
Craig Dunn: All right, I know we've had a lot of discussion on customer service. I know it's really important. Can I ask if you do have any more questions that we do use the management and the people that are available, either online or outside? I'm conscious that other shareholders want to come to other issues, so can I please ask that we do that? We've heard your concerns, and I think we've given a lot of time to customer service. We've got other avenues for you to address those issues outside of the meeting.
Nathan Burley: There's a question on microphone 3, which is currently our last question on this item, Craig.
Craig Dunn: Thank you.
Female Moderator: Question.
Craig Dunn: Thank you, Mr Marshall.
Al Marshall: (Shareholder) A quick comment to the last person. In addition to the $2.50, you get $15 [out] if you pay late. Mr Dunn, you're the Chairman of the Board, Vicki's the CEO, Mr Ackland's the CFO, who is the Chief Complaints Officer in Telstra, the CCO?
Craig Dunn: Yes, so it depends on the business. So the business segments take…
Al Marshall: (Shareholder) [Unclear] our customers.
Craig Dunn: Business segments take responsibility for those issues. Brad Whitcomb's here, he manages that segment. Brad is reporting to the Board later on today around our customer service. So I thank you for your questions. I think you've had plenty of opportunity to talk about customer service. I'm very happy to see you after the meeting to progress those conversations further.
Al Marshall: (Shareholder) The other simple question, how many complaints were there in FY24?
Craig Dunn: We've dealt with those issues before, thank you, sir.
Al Marshall: (Shareholder) You didn't answer them.
Craig Dunn: Thank you.
Al Marshall: (Shareholder) How many? It's a number.
Craig Dunn: Thank you, sir. Okay, Nathan.
Nathan Burley: We have no more online questions or no more questions from the floor on this item, so that concludes the question-and-answer session for this item.
Craig Dunn: Thanks, Nathan, and thank you, shareholders. So, as Nathan said, we've now completed discussion of item 2. Next up is item 3, director re-election. As I mentioned earlier, Roy Chestnutt - sorry, Roy - is standing for re-election today. Roy's details are set out in the Notice of Meeting. If you have any questions on his re-election, please come to your nearest microphone or submit your online question. I'd now like Roy to speak to the meeting. Thanks, Roy.
Roy Chestnutt: Thanks, Chair. Good afternoon. I'm Roy Chestnutt, and I've had the privilege of serving on the Telstra Board for the last six years. Today I ask for your support for a third term. I remain excited and highly engaged in the business of the Board as we have executed our way through T22 and the T25 strategies, and are currently building our strategies for 2030 and beyond.
I've thoroughly enjoyed my time on the Board, which began after over 30 years of experience in the telecommunications industry in a variety of operating roles including CEO of a fibre to the home company and culminating in my position as chief strategy officer and head of corporate development for US-based Verizon Communications.
During my time there, I sat on the board of directors of the GSMA, our global industry association, and I remain connected with my former GSMA colleagues and stay current on global industry trends and best practices. In addition to my role on the Telstra Board, I also serve on the board of directors of global satellite provider, Intelsat. Given the convergence of technologies in our industry, this provides valuable insights into future strategic opportunities and threats to our industry.
I stay current on industry trends via my advisory roles at Accenture, FTI Delta and Tillman Global Holdings and with your support I look forward to the next three years in helping to support the growth and strategic development of Telstra. Thank you.
Craig Dunn: Thank you, Roy. So, the Board, other than Roy in respect of his own re-election, recommends the re-election of Roy Chestnutt. The proxy and direct voting position for item 3 is being shown on the screen now. As indicated in the Notice of Meeting, I intend to vote all available proxies in favour of the re-election of Roy. I'll now take questions from shareholders on item 3. Nathan, do we have any questions online?
Nathan Burley: Yes, we'll start with online questions, and the first question on this item is from Stephen Mayne. Did any of the five main proxy advisors, [ASCII], Ownership Matters, [Glasshouse Lewis], ISS and ASA, recommend a vote against any of today's resolutions, including on Roy Chestnutt's re-election? If so, what did they give - what reasons did they give, and will you disclose the proxy votes before the debate so shareholders can question if there had been any protests? Best practice is now to disclose the proxies to the ASX along with the formal addresses to offer more timely disclosure to the market. Will you adopt this practice at next year's AGM?
Craig Dunn: Thank you, Mr Mayne. So we have disclosed the vote for proxy and direct votes for Roy's re-election. That's on the screen now as we speak. That is a practice that we've changed in recent times as a part of the feedback from you. So regarding proxy advisors and their votes on remuneration, I prefer to come back to that when we discuss the remuneration matter. As far as I'm aware, there were no recommendations by proxy advisors against Roy's re-election.
Nathan Burley: The next question is again from Stephen Mayne. Why is only one Director up today? In 2019, Treasury Wine Estates voluntarily moved to annual elections for directors in line with best practice in the US and UK. Dual-listed companies like News Corp and Rio Tinto do this due to laws in the US and UK, and BHP has continued to do so even after its UK DLC ended in 2021. Can the new Chair, Craig Dunn, undertake to investigate Telstra following this TWE lead and move to annual elections at the 2025 AGM? Our former Chair, John Mullen, has promised to keep doing this as the new TWE chair.
Craig Dunn: Thank you, Mr Mayne. So we've not discussed that matter recently at the Board. I'm happy to take that feedback on board. I'm not suggesting we would agree to move to annual elections. There are pros and cons, as you know, from moving to that. You're quite right. This year we only have one Director being re-elected. If my memory serves correct, last year we had four Directors, a combination of re-election and election of new Directors.
Nathan Burley: We have a question from the floor on microphone number 2.
Female Moderator: Chair, I have Sue Harris with a question.
Sue Harris: (Shareholder) Thank you. Mr Chairman, congratulations on a much improved Board skills table. Shareholders have little to go on when electing a Director to your Board and improved granularity in the skill levels as well as independent audit is welcome. We still think there is a way to go, though, as your skills are in the form of a table and not a matrix with each Director identified. So could we encourage further transparency, and can we ask for improvement next year, please?
Craig Dunn: Thank you, Sue. So I will take - I will commit to review that. I'm again not suggesting that's where we'll end up. Can I thank you for your feedback last year or over the past couple of years on that table? We have tried to listen and have sought to improve it, and I hope that is something that you find more valuable.
Nathan Burley: We have no further questions online or on the floor from this item. So that concludes the question-and-answer session for this item.
Craig Dunn: Thank you, Nathan, and thank you, shareholders. So that brings close - or to a close, our discussion of item 3. If you haven't already done so, can you please complete your voting card for item 3. Items 4 and 5 on today's agenda relate to the allocation of equity to Vicki Brady, our CEO, under Telstra's FY24 executive variable remuneration plan, and the adoption of our 2024 remuneration report. Items 4 and 5 will be voted on separately, but as they both relate to remuneration, we'll deal with them together in our discussion.
The resolutions are set out in the Notice of Meeting and are shown on the screen. The Board recommends that shareholders vote in favour of these items. You might recall I mentioned in my opening remarks that I'd like to comment on the approach the Board took to this year's decisions on executive variable remuneration or EVP. Because as you'll see shortly when I bring up the relevant proxy and direct voting positions, this year we have received more votes against the grant of restricted shares and the remuneration report than in recent times.
While I do have to be careful in representing why shareholders may have voted in a particular way, I have gained some understanding from my meetings with proxy advisors and shareholders ahead of today's AGM, which I'd like to comment on now. It's worth noting that a key takeaway from those engagements is that Telstra's remuneration structure is considered to be well aligned with the interests of shareholders. Many investors regard the standard level of disclosure we include in our remuneration report to be market-leading.
That said, some shareholders disagree with the way the Board has treated certain one-off items when applying the EVP this year, the largest being the restructuring provision for our recent role reductions, along with the asset write downs relating to our Telstra Enterprise business. I appreciate there are always a range of views on remuneration, but I would like to emphasise that the Board made careful and deliberate decisions on both these items, with the fundamental drive of being to act in the best interests of shareholders now and into the future.
To ensure your alignment between your interests, or alignment between your interests rather as shareholders and management's variable remuneration, as I've mentioned earlier, 75% of the EVP is delivered to management in some form of equity. The majority of which will not vest for four years and only if Telstra delivers total shareholder returns that meet relevant hurdles.
Despite this, the Board will consider in detail the feedback we've received and reflect on the approach we've taken this year. The proxy and direct voting positions for items 4 and 5 are being shown on the screen now. As indicated in the Notice of Meeting, I intend to vote all available proxies in favour of the grants to Vicki and the adoption of the remuneration report. If you have any questions regarding items 4 or 5, can you please come to your nearest microphone or submit your questions online. I'll now take questions from shareholders. Nathan, over to you.
Nathan Burley: We do have some online questions on this item, and it's another question from Stephen Mayne. I understand that today's remuneration strike was because accounting changes allowed the executive team to narrowly achieve the ROIC and EBITDA hurdles, which resulted in a $7 million gain for the executive team that could otherwise not have paid out. Could the Rem Chair respond to this explanation and also summarise the impactful accounting changes that were accepted. Do we now recognise this was a mistake that angered shareholders who delivered the rem strike? Are we going to respond to this?
Craig Dunn: So, thank you, Mr Mayne. So firstly, you can see - sorry, perhaps you can't because you're online, but from the screen that's been shown to the meeting. Whilst I said the number of votes against the granting of restricted shares to Vicki and the number of votes against the rem report is higher than in recent years, there is not a strike against the remuneration report. I did mention in my comments that some shareholders have objected to the way we treated certain one-off items.
I might touch on one of those to give you an example of the way the Board has thought about it. So for example, if you read our accounts, you will see there was a large restructuring provision this year. Both Vicki and I mentioned earlier that whilst from time to time Telstra does reshape the way it thinks about certain aspects of its teams or workforce, the number of roles that we reduced over the past 12 months is very unusual and very significant.
So as a consequence of that, and as a consequence of market leading redundancy provisions that we have for our staff, which we think are very important. These are difficult decisions and obviously they have impact on people's jobs and their lives, and so it's important to have fair redundancy outcomes. That led to a large cost. In our view, whilst those decisions are unpopular and difficult to make, those decisions which weren't taken lightly are in the best interest of shareholders. We didn't think it was right to penalise management for taking decisions that are clearly in your best interest as shareholders. That's why we took the approach we did to that particular item.
Nathan Burley: The next question is yet another question from Stephen Mayne. Could CEO Vicki Brady summarise her past LTI grants as to whether they have vested or lapsed since she joined Telstra in 2016. Also, has she ever sold any ordinary shares in the Company or bought any on market without relying on an incentive scheme to build her equity position? Please don't say look it up in the annual report and through ASX announcements. It's complicated and the CEO could factually summarise the situation in 60 seconds.
Craig Dunn: Thank you, Mr Mayne. So, I can't recall exactly, over - since 2016, how many of the - well, let me step back. When we - just to explain it to shareholders. So when we think about our executive variable remuneration. As I said, 75% of that is paid in some form of equity. Some part of that is - my recollection is it's 35%, is deferred as vested - sorry, deferred as shares and vests over time over four years. So 25% over each four years. Then 40% of it will only vest after four or five years, depending on what date we're looking at, if Telstra delivers relative total shareholder returns over a certain hurdle.
So, I think what Mr Mayne is referring to is that second element of the variable remuneration. I can't recall exactly how that's worked for Vicki over the time since 2016. I'm happy to provide that information to you separately offline, Mr Mayne. I do note that in the last year, because Telstra did deliver against those hurdles, that that did result in some vesting of that outcome.
Nathan Burley: We'll now take some questions from the floor on this item. Microphone number 3.
Female Moderator: Chair, I have Al Marshall with a question, thank you.
Al Marshall: (Shareholder) In the AGM summary document on page…
Craig Dunn: Sorry, Mr Marshall, can you just talk right into the phone? It's hard with the doors [unclear]…
Al Marshall: (Shareholder) I suspect I've been silenced.
Craig Dunn: No, not at all.
Al Marshall: (Shareholder) On pages 18 to 20, it deals with performance. In particular, on page 20, there's a section on clawback, brackets, malice. Clawback shall include fraud, dishonesty, gross misconduct, material breach of obligations by the CEO. Given that you've confirmed that Telstra has overseas call centres still contrary to Ms Brady's assertion on 21 May that we no longer have call centres overseas. Would you consider that to be dishonest and therefore invoke this clause?
Craig Dunn: I simply don't accept that view of what Vicki's communicated to shareholders. I know how carefully Vicki prepares for communicating to shareholders. I just don't agree with you sir.
Nathan Burley: We have another question on microphone number two.
Female Moderator: Chair, I have Sue Harris with a question.
Sue Harris: (Shareholder) I have two questions on this item. Would you like them both?
Craig Dunn: Why don’t you go through both of them together, if that’s okay?
Sue Harris: (Shareholder) Okay. There appears to be a significant difference to the reputation scores between the RepTrak, where Telstra scored above its threshold level, and which you use to assess the CEO performance, and the widely available Roy Morgan Australian Trusted Brands survey, in which Telstra is the sixth most distrusted brand, sorry. Can you explain?
Second question, completely different is, the ASA likes the fact that components of the remuneration structure are in play for five years, so are reasonably long term, unlike for many ASX listed companies. Can we ask that in the event of a senior executive departing on good terms, whether the long-term components remain in play until the end of the five-year period, and are not paid out subject to board discretion?
Craig Dunn: Thank you, Sue. Perhaps I’d go to your last question first, and I’ll use language that both you and I will understand. We might use slightly more technical language in the relevant employment contract, but if an executive leaves on a good leaver basis, unless there’s very exceptional circumstances, their remuneration, or their variable remuneration, will only vest if it meets a certain time hurdle, if it’s time-based, or will only vest on another basis, i.e. we’ve met the TSR or Total Shareholder Return hurdles, if they’ve been met.
Your first question regarding RepTrak and another external measure, Roy Morgan, thank you. The simple answer is they measure different things, surprisingly – not surprisingly, and they use a different stakeholder group. It is a score that we introduced over the last few years, we do think reputation is a really important outcome for shareholders, and we’ve all seen from time to time where companies haven’t quite got that right, and it’s often had serious implications for shareholders.
The non-financial measures that we have in our scorecard, we do think they’re important, because whilst it’s in a sense recording management’s results in a particular year, we do think they are often lead indicators of how the organisation will perform going forward. There’s a lot of empirical evidence, which I’m sure you’ll know given your expertise with customer NPS scores, employee engagement scores, if they’re heading in the right direction, usually that leads to better share outcomes – shareholder outcomes.
They are different measures, and you’ll perhaps recall from last year, we didn’t meet that hurdle and so no executive variable remuneration was paid to the senior management team because of that. This year we did. Thank you sue.
Nathan Burley: We have another question from microphone number three.
Female Moderator: Chair I have Ericka Van Aalst with a question.
Ericka Van Aalst: (Shareholder) My question is, considering the risk to shareholders about the recently exposed to the media, which came up by someone else today, the poor customer service, and as expressed today. Considering the risk to shareholders, and then the chair telling us that we have – you don’t want any more questions on customer service, and this is not a question on customer service, I say.
But you said you have – Telstra has avenues – other avenues to address these, but considering the risk to shareholders when they’re hearing again and again and again, that the avenues that Telstra has in place are not addressing the concerns expressed here, I would like to know what Miss Brady is planning to do to implement or correct or make operative, the actual avenues that you’re talking about. What Miss Brady’s intending to do after hearing today the recent media and such?
Craig Dunn: Thank you for your question. In my view that question goes back to customer service in Item 2. I understand your frustration, I think the rest of the shareholders in the meeting, we’ve allocated a whole part of the meeting to customer service, it’s very important. You’ve been heard, I’ve agreed to meet with you after the meeting, I think we’ve dealt with the issues you’ve addressed. I understand your frustration…
Ericka Van Aalst: [Unclear] what you intend to do, after hearing today what [unclear]?
Craig Dunn: I think you’ve had an opportunity to express your concerns, they’ve been heard. I’ve dealt with them, I intend to move on, thank you.
Nathan Burley: The next question is on microphone number two.
Female Moderator: Chair, I have Peter Starr with a question.
Peter Starr: (Shareholder) Thank you, Craig. Just a couple of points there. If you look at 4(a) and 4(b), any reason why the against on 4(b) was a lot less than in (a) please? If you could [comment on that]. The other thing in remuneration, a lot of people might forget, is about – a lot of companies it’s the STI is three years. Some have now moved to four, and as Sue from the Shareholders Association, that five-year period.
I think it’s really important to remember that where the executive team doesn’t receive – and this is across the board, because they haven’t met those things, it’s an important thing to disclose, which you have. Where they have met them, then that should also be disclosed, which you have done. I think in relation to – this is always quite a sensitive topic, I guess, at AGM seasons across the board, but in relation to the granting of those things to Vicki, we’ll be voting definitely yes, but we think that any clawback things and positions that you have are very adequate that meets that.
But it's really important for shareholders, I think, and this is across the board, to remember that the amount of work that – especially in Vicki’s case, what she does, is really not always 09:00 to 05:00, ladies and gentlemen, and also that she attends numerous things where she has to attend, and sometimes that can be late in the evening, or she’s got to be summoned to Canberra because of things. She’s available, as the head of the company.
I think they’re things to really think about and consider, but if you could explain that to the mum and dad shareholders, that would be great, thanks Craig.
Craig Dunn: Yeah, thank you Peter, it’s a very good question. My understanding is – and sorry, I needed to go to Mr Mayne’s earlier question. There were two proxy voters that voted against the remuneration report, and I don’t want to simplify their views, or misrepresent their views, but I think they were con - largely consistent. There were other reasons for what I explained, for some shareholders I think why they voted no against those in my opening comments.
I think the way people think about it is because they’ve objected to the outcomes under the remuneration report, which flows largely to the EVP for that year, under that EVP, the amount of grant of restricted shares under 4(a) is driven by the decisions we make under the EVP. I think the thinking is, we disagree with the approach taken on the amount of EP allocated, therefore – or determined, and therefore the element that ends up in restricted shares is thereby, by inference, inappropriate. That’s the reason for the two.
Whereas the grant of performance rights, as I’ve talked about before, and as obviously with your experience, you know Peter, that that’s tested on outcomes in four- or five-years’ time, relative to TSR. Does that help?
Peter Starr: (Shareholder) Very good, thank you Craig.
Craig Dunn: Thank you.
Nathan Burley: Next question is from microphone number three, which is currently our last question on this item.
Female Moderator: Chair, I have Al Marshall with a question, thank you.
Al Marshall: Given that only one can be true, we have brought all call centres back to Australia, or your statement today confirming that we have call centres overseas still. Only one can be true, which is true?
Craig Dunn: I’ve answered that question Mr Marshall, thank you.
Al Marshall: All right. In terms of the malice provisions, on point 4, I’m not going back to point 2, in terms of the malice provisions, I move that you conduct an independent investigation of Miss Brady’s statement of 21 May as to whether it was true or false.
Craig Dunn: I don’t accept your…
Al Marshall: Therefore, I move that no further business be conducted on item 4 until that independent investigation is completed.
Craig Dunn: Firstly sir, under our constitution, you don’t have the right to move resolutions from the floor, they need to be set out in a notice of meeting. I’m afraid you can’t do that.
Al Marshall: Well, had Miss Brady answered my email of April and May I would have had the answer, and I would have had a motion ready to roll.
Craig Dunn: I think I’ve dealt with your comments, so thank you sir.
Nathan Burley: Craig, we have no further questions online or from the floor on this item, so that concludes the question-and-answer session for these items.
Craig Dunn: Thank you, Nathan and shareholders. As Nathan said, that ends our discussion on items four and five. Please complete your voting card for these items. I now move to item six, the final item on today’s agenda, which relates to the appointment of a new auditor. As I mentioned earlier, in line with the principles of good corporate governance, a review of the external audit engagement was conducted during the year.
Following a completion of a tender process, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu were selected to provide statutory auditing services from the financial year starting 1 July 2024. ASIC has consented to Ernst & Young’s resignation, subject to shareholders approving Deloitte’s appointment at the AGM today. The board recommends that shareholders vote in favour of item six, the appointment of a new auditor.
As indicated in the notice of meeting, I intend to vote all available proxies in favour of this resolution. The proxy and direct voting position for item six is being shown on the screen. Shareholders, I will conclude the AGM at the end of this question session, so if you have any final questions you’d like to ask about your company, that are relevant to shareholders as a whole, please ask those now. I’ll take questions from shareholders on item six, as well as any other remaining questions on earlier items of business. Back to you Nathan.
Nathan Burley: We have no questions online at this stage, but we have one question from microphone number three.
Female Moderator: Thank you. Chair, I have Kaz Kazim with a question.
Kaz Kazim: (Shareholder) Just a quick and final to say thank you, you’ve done a great job.
Craig Dunn: Thank you.
Kaz Kazim: (Shareholder) I loathe the idea of bagging or saying what I did, but if I’d have had good service, and if it had improved, I would never have had the need to get up and say. Finally, well look, I know you’re trying, but please try a little harder. It will do the advertising for you, the word of mouth is much better. I just met somebody in the foyer, and she said, we were with Telstra but we moved to Optus. I said, well I’m not doing that, I’d much rather be in contact and say – and hopefully it registered, and some action is taken.
Thank you for whatever you’ve done, and you continue to work. Emissions reduction is important for all of us because it doesn’t stop here, the bush fires went up to [Chile]. We’ve all got to be in it together, and all I’m saying, thank you and please keep up the work that you need to do. Thank you.
Craig Dunn: Thank you, sir, thank you for coming along today.
Nathan Burley: We have an online question from Dennis Paul O’Brien. Why can’t I vote online during the meeting?
Craig Dunn: Thank you, Mr O’Brien. We did review the procedures for our Annual General Meeting. We did, obviously, during COVID, have a number of hybrid meetings. Having undertaken that review, what we’ve found is asking questions or over the phone, or voting online, not many shareholders indeed take advantage of it, and in our view, it adds complexity and doesn’t improve the shareholder experience. That’s why we’ve made that change.
Nathan Burley: Craig, there are no further questions online, and no questions on the floor, so that concludes the question-and-answer session for this item.
Craig Dunn: Great, thank you Nathan. Shareholders, that concludes the formal business of today’s Annual General Meeting. Shareholders, please put your voting card in one of the ballot boxes, attendants will be carrying ballot boxes throughout the room, and they are also located near the exits. The poll will remain open for a further 10 minutes, the results of the poll will be available later today and can be obtained by visiting the ASX or our website.
I now declare our 2024 Annual General Meeting closed, subject to the finalisation of the poll on items three to six. On behalf of the board, thank you shareholders for joining us today.
The AGM of Telstra Group Limited was held on Tuesday 17 October 2023 in the Sovereign Room (Level 1), Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre, 1 Convention Centre Place, South Wharf, Victoria 3006 and online using the platform provided by our share registry, Link Market Services.
Recording of the 2023 AGM held on Tuesday 17 October 2023 in the Sovereign Room (Level 1), Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre, 1 Convention Centre Place, South Wharf, Victoria 3006.
Nathan Burley:
Good morning shareholders. I am Nathan Burley; Head of Investor Relations and it is my pleasure to be your MC today for our 2023 Annual General Meeting.
Before we start official proceedings, I'd like to begin by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land on which we meet, the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation. I pay my respects to their Elders past and present. I'd also like to acknowledge the traditional owners of country throughout Australia and recognise their continued connection to land, waters and culture. I would also like to extend that welcome to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who are here today.
Welcome to everyone here in the Sovereign Room. It is great to see so many shareholders here today. We are conducting a hybrid AGM again this year. So I'd like to welcome everyone joining online from wherever you may be. There are a few procedural and housekeeping matters to run through before we get underway.
For those in the room, we will be serving a light lunch at around 12 noon. However, if the AGM has not finished by that time we will not be adjourning for lunch. You also have been given a card when you registered this morning. Yellow cards are for shareholders who may speak and vote. Blue cards are for shareholders who may speak but not vote. You will need your card to ask a question or to re-enter the meeting.
A slide is going up behind me which explains how to vote. If you have any queries about how to vote, please speak with one of our team members in the room or in the shareholder registration area outside, who will be able to assist you.
The procedure on how to ask a question here in the room is now being shown on the screen. For shareholders joining us online, on your screen you will see our Virtual Meeting Guide. This contains all the information you need about how to vote and ask questions. You can also call the help number shown on your screen if you have any difficulties.
In terms of how we will manage shareholder questions today, for each question session we will rotate between taking questions from online, from the room and on the web phone. We may have quite a few questions to get through so we please ask shareholders to be patient.
I will read the online written questions to the Chairman as they have been written by shareholders. If we can't answer your question, or we can't get through all the questions today, we will respond to any unanswered questions after the meeting, either directly through the answers to common questions or through the answers to common questions on our AGM website.
If you have any individual customer or shareholder issue, please speak with one of our customer service team members here today.
For shareholders submitting written questions online, one of our customer service or share register staff will be in touch with you after the meeting.
For shareholders joining us online, the online platform is now open and I encourage you to submit any questions you may have now.
With those procedural matters out of the way, I will hand over to your Chairman, John Mullen.
John Mullen:
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. My name is John, John Mullen, and it is my great pleasure to welcome you this morning to Telstra’s 2023 Annual General Meeting. Thank you all for joining us today and for your continued support and investment in Telstra.
This is of course also a hybrid meeting, so a very warm welcome to the many shareholders who have chosen to join us online. A quorum is present, and it is my pleasure therefore to formally declare today’s meeting open. A Notice of Meeting was distributed earlier setting out the business and resolutions to be considered today. I propose to take that Notice as read.
There are a number of items of business on today’s agenda and all of them are now being shown on the screen. Voting on items 3 to 5 will be conducted by poll and that poll is now open. Instructions on how to participate in the poll were distributed earlier but assistance is available at any time, should you need it.
I am pleased to be joined on stage today by all of my fellow Board members; Company Secretary, Sue Laver, our Chief Financial Officer, Michael Ackland. Directors Maxine Brenner and Ming Long, having been appointed during the year, are standing for election. Current directors, Bridget Loudon and Elana Rubin are also both standing for re-election today. You will hear from each of them shortly. Sarah Lowe from our auditors Ernst and Young is also here today and I’m sure she would be happy to answer any questions you may have on the conduct of the audit, or on the auditor’s report itself. Our senior management team is also present.
This will be my last AGM as Chair as I come to the end of what has been a tremendously rewarding 15 years serving on the Telstra Board. I will only comment briefly on the year just passed and will leave our CEO, Vicki Brady, to provide more detail but I would like to take this opportunity to look back and reflect upon what has been an extraordinary 15 years.
There have been many ups and downs and lessons learned, and I will try and share some reflections with you in a minute.
Firstly though, looking briefly back over the last 12 months. It has been a very successful year on almost all fronts. We farewelled Andy Penn as a very successful CEO of Telstra, and we welcomed an outstanding new leader for the company in Vicki Brady.
We attained most of our financial targets and we delivered within guidance. We have made good progress in our first year of delivering against our T25 strategy. We have returned to growth, strength in mobiles, and our investment in customer experience all paying off with Episode NPS, Net Promoter Score, at record highs and customer complaints at record lows.
Our sustainability initiatives continue to progress well and lead the telco sector in Australia. The year has seen substantial progress on many fronts, but of course there is always so much more to do.
Before moving on, ahead of today’s meeting we received a number of questions about Telstra’s support for a First Nations Voice to Parliament, so let me address that one up front. We recognise that there are different and passionate views out there in the community, both for and against. In Telstra’s case, we decided that supporting the Voice was in the best interests of the Company and our shareholders.
It was not a decision taken as a result of the personal views of any Board or management members individually and indeed just like the community there are differing views amongst both our Board and management. However, where we are all in agreement, was that support is in the best interests of the Company and therefore our shareholders.
Telstra is a long-time supporter of reconciliation and has strong connections with First Nations through our employees, customers, stakeholders and communities across the country. It was made clear to us that the majority of First Nations peoples endorsed the Voice as critical to the future of reconciliation, and we took these views very seriously.
We also strongly believe that reconciliation is a positive step forward for our country and for the economy and therefore positive for our business and our shareholders. For this reason, and because we are a values based company that supports our words with actions, we supported the Yes campaign by providing $1 million of advertising spend.
Following the referendum outcome on the weekend, we respect the result that our democratic system has delivered. We remain committed to reconciliation and we will continue to work in close partnership with First Nations people and communities across Australia.
So now if I may, let me share a few reflections on the last 15 years, some of the things that went well, some of those that did not go so well, and some of the lessons learned.
Let me start by saying that Telstra is in a really good place. The Company is a completely different entity than it was 15 years ago - stronger and better in so many ways. The speed and scale of change in the telco and technology sectors is staggering. These last 15 years have seen the launch of 3G, 4G and then 5G; the launch of the first iPhone through to the iPhone 15 and the complete revolution of mobile communications.
The Telstra that we knew was also impacted significantly by the creation of the NBN. During this time, Telstra transformed itself into a dynamic modern telecommunications leader. We were the first to launch 4G and then 5G in Australia and we consistently rate as having one of the best mobile networks in the world. We cover more of Australia with our mobile network than any other company and customers have access to high quality voice, text, video and internet communications in more places at a range of different price points than ever before.
The last 15 years have also seen an exponential increase in the amount of mobile data flowing over our network and the number of things connected on our network, from schoolrooms to tractors, telehealth services and work from home setups.
You may be surprised to know that the price of our entry level month to month mobile plan is just $2 more today than what it was 10 years ago but the data included has increased by 25 times and that’s not to mention the increases in coverage and speed on the network and that nearly all of our in-market mobile plans now come with unlimited standard voice calls in Australia.
While providing this huge increase in data availability and speed and helping to enable enormous digital advancement, Telstra has lost over $6 billion of profit in the last decade or so. This has been predominantly from the impact of the NBN but also the loss of voice revenues, SMS revenues and other pressures, and had an inevitable impact on earnings, dividends and our share price.
We have bounced back strongly. Our T22 program to radically restructure the Company to offset some of these negative impacts has been extremely successful. Financially, over those 15 years we have paid out over $45 billion in dividends to shareholders. We have paid some $20 billion in tax to the nation and our contribution to society beyond financial considerations has also been considerable.
As a corporate citizen we are active on many fronts. To protect customers and the public from ever rising cybercrime, Telstra blocks more than 9 million scam calls and almost 280 million incoming scam and unwanted emails every month and around 20 million SMS messages since we launched our Cleaner Pipes initiative in 2022.
We are making a big contribution to the transition of Australia’s energy sector by supporting more than $1 billion in renewable energy projects to date and we are one of the largest corporate contributors to renewable energy projects in the country.
Last financial year we supported some 1.2 million customers in vulnerable circumstances to allow them to stay connected and we have expanded this to reach more customers experiencing mental health challenges, disability, homelessness, family or domestic violence or who need emergency relief due to natural disaster. We also invest heavily in disaster preparedness and response to keep communities connected.
We are working to improve digital inclusion across a range of areas; in how we help seniors and First Nation Australians to grow their digital skills, in how we provide a range of price points for customers experiencing cost of living pressures and in how we are bringing new and better services to regional and remote Australia, including with Low Earth Orbit satellites and other technologies.
When I look at Telstra today, it is almost unrecognisable from the company I joined back in 2008 and I must pay tribute to the many, many people across our organisation who have made all of this possible. Firstly, when I look at my Board colleagues here today, I feel immensely privileged to work alongside individuals of the calibre, experience and ability they represent.
I believe that we have the strongest Board today that we have had in my 15 years and every single individual is exceptional. Exceptional not just in capability and contribution but also in diversity and character. Diversity on Boards today is so often just a euphemism for a male/female ratio. Telstra has a good balance there, but real diversity comes from diversity of thought, of values, of background, of age and more, and I am intensely proud of what we have achieved around the Telstra Board table.
Everyone brings a different perspective, skill, experience and contribution to the table but we function as a united team and how good is it that we were perhaps the first and maybe only large ASX corporate to need a director’s parental leave policy, as we have a young mum sitting on this Board with us.
I am proud too that the strength of the Board is allowing for a seamless transition in Chair from myself to Craig Dunn. Craig is a simply outstanding director and is absolutely the right person to lead the Board into this next phase.
Then when I look at our management team, again I feel that we are looking at the best management team that we have had in many, many years. The Board could not be more delighted with the way that Vicki has taken up the reins as CEO after the very successful tenure of Andy Penn.
Vicki is an outstanding leader who is widely respected within the Company and outside, amongst investors, the business community, government and other stakeholders. I have absolute confidence that Vicki and her management team will take Telstra on to new heights in the years to come and will retain Telstra’s position as the leading telecommunications company in Australia, and a company that directly or indirectly impacts the lives of almost everyone in Australia.
If I look forward and reflect on the challenges that my colleagues have ahead of them, I think that the years ahead will probably see just as many changes and new challenges going forward as we have seen in the 15 years that I have been here.
It will no longer be my responsibility but it will be that of Craig, Vicki and their colleagues to set the direction going forward. As I step down, I have four thoughts to pass on which of course my colleagues may choose to agree with or reject as they see fit.
The first is about the evolving role and value of telecommunications services. Telecommunications is a highly competitive industry but Telstra has been good at competing and will continue to be so. However, I believe that the big changes in our world are going to come from other areas of disruption changing our industry on a global scale.
Satellite technology is going to change the nature of the industry, especially in regional areas and in this context, an ever increasing challenge is how to monetise the extraordinary technology and capabilities offered by telco’s like Telstra. Telstra and the industry pay for the networks and the capacity that carry all this explosion of traffic but when you think about the volumes of data carried, we get paid less and less for it.
We need to set policy and regulatory frameworks that allow the industry to remain financially sustainable, and this is even more important now given the critical role that telco infrastructure and services will continue to play in Australia’s digital future.
While Telstra does better than most, telecommunication returns on capital are still low and finding a solution to this and sharing more in the rewards to be gained from increased connectivity will be a key challenge for my colleagues going forward.
Telecommunications is so much more than just being able to give someone a call on the mobile or access a website to check your bank account or even buy a footy ticket. The reality is that telecommunications represents the essential digital infrastructure of a modern successful nation and it impacts everything that we do both in private and in business.
Telecommunications drives productivity across all facets of life and increased investment in the nation’s digital infrastructure with industry, community and government working hand in hand is critical to the nation’s future prosperity. I urge my colleagues to make sure that Telstra plays a leading role in engendering this cooperation and investment in the future for us and our children.
Second, when I look back at what we have not been as successful at as I would have liked, I consistently land back on the customer experience. This is truly a glass half full / glass half empty story, because to the credit of management, on the positive side, there is no question that every single metric around the customer experience has improved dramatically in recent years.
Ombudsman complaints against Telstra have reduced by nearly 70% since the beginning of T22 and are at their lowest on record. The number of inbound calls to customer service over the four years to [FY22] reduced from around 36 million to just over 10 million, a reduction of 71% and we can see that customers are feeling the benefits of digitisation, comparing the new digital stack to the old, Episode NPS has doubled and the average time for fixed activations has halved.
However, even though the percentage of errors and failures has improved dramatically and in most cases is the best that it has ever been, there are still too many instances of customer experience failures. Even one error is too many in today’s digital world and society’s ever increasing expectations for rapid and efficient service.
I urge my colleagues to redouble their efforts to be relentless in driving improvement and not to rest until Telstra is seen as a role model for modern digital delivery of telecommunications services.
Third, I would urge my colleagues to be bold and to take risks. Not decisions that risk the whole Company of course, but sitting and waiting for the world to change, rather than driving the change itself, is guaranteed to ensure that one is always behind and not in front.
While not perfect, Telstra actually has a pretty good record in this regard. For example; our 2010 decision to spend around $1 billion to grow market share in all product segments, ramp up customer service and to simplify the business; our 2016 decision to invest $3 billion in digitisation and networks; our 2018 decision under T22 to simplify and digitise, create InfraCo and dramatically reduce cost; and our 2019 decision to double down on 5G launch investment to lead the industry.
All these led to us maintaining our market leadership, investing for the future, and delivering a better customer experience. If we hadn’t, we would not be in the strong position that we are in today. To my colleagues, be brave and keep this up. You will get criticised for the odd failure but I am 100% sure that the Company will do better by continuing to take such risks than by sitting on its hands and just hoping that things will go well.
Fourth and finally, let me make a few comments on the extraordinary changes that we have also seen in these last 15 years in respect of the public company sector, governance, regulation and the general business environment, as they relate to Telstra.
Many things are for the better, and overall there's no doubt, business is better, more ethical and better regulated than it has ever been. This said, the change has been profound and while all of it was well intentioned and done for the right reasons, the consequences have perhaps not always been what were intended.
The focus on executive remuneration is one example. Setting remuneration for executives should be exercised by a Board to attract, motivate and reward executives. Today, however, industry is effectively increasingly the outsourcing remuneration to a whole new industry of remuneration advisors and proxy advisors with executive remuneration becoming ever more complex and being required to meet a whole selection of criteria from different stakeholders to obtain shareholder approval.
Today there is also a simplistic view held by many that if a company’s share price is down, then executives should receive little if any variable compensation. If the share price is down due to acts or omissions of management then of course that is fair, but if the share price is down because of external events outside management’s control, and they have a massive task in front of them to get the Company back on its feet, then in my view it is even more in shareholders’ interests to motivate and reward executives for their hard work in these challenging times than it is in good times.
The reality, however, is that this is very difficult for the Board of a public company to do without coming under criticism from all this range of third parties. Another example would be that for some reason it's believed that paying directors part or all of their compensation in shares somehow limits independence. So the great majority of companies pay their directors in cash.
I cannot think of any better way to align shareholders’ and directors’ interests and the Company's interests than to pay directors in shares, with a simple time lock on how long they have to be kept before they become unrestricted.
There are other examples of how complex corporate governance has become over the years and the result has been that the average large company Board today spends an ever increasing amount of time on governance and process and less on strategy and performance. In my view, these trends are to the detriment of the public company structure in Australia and the huge beneficiaries of all this of course, have been private equity and private capital generally.
Private companies today perhaps have a far better balance between strategy and performance versus governance. Decision making processes are shortened, risk taking is encouraged, investing for the longer term not just the next half’s result is paramount, and the remuneration process is greatly simplified.
About 15 years ago when I started, private capital was not such a significant player, but today that has completely reversed. At the executive level more and more talented executives just do not want all the public scrutiny and hassle so they prefer to work in private equity or other private structures and the same increasingly goes increasingly for directors.
So I think there is a lot that we can learn from private equity and private capital in how to make companies leaner, faster and more efficient and I hope that the pendulum starts to swing back a bit the other way as we still need a healthy and dynamic public company regime in Australia.
So I will close here by saying again that your Company is in great shape and performance is strong. The future looks exciting and Telstra is right in the middle of the most profound technological change the world has ever seen. Telstra is today and will remain, the essential core of our nation’s infrastructure and will have a more and more important role to play in the prosperity and success of our nation going forward.
I profusely thank you as shareholders for allowing me the extraordinary privilege of being on the Board of Telstra for 15 years and being Chairman for seven. These have been some of the best years of my working life. Thank you to my fellow Board members for the fantastic support, friendship and contribution you have given me over these years and thank you to the management team and employees of Telstra for having put in all the hard work that has brought the Company to where it is today.
I wish Craig every success in taking on the role of Chair and I have total confidence that the combination of Craig and Vicki, with the respective Board and management teams behind them, will take Telstra on to a whole other level of achievement in the years to come.
I shall continue to watch from afar with great interest and much affection. Thank you and let me now hand over to Craig to say a few words as well.
Craig Dunn:
Thank you, John and good morning, ladies and gentlemen. John, on behalf of the Board and Telstra’s shareholders can I express our deep thanks and appreciation for your service over the last 15 years.
You’ve made an enormous contribution to the Company, especially in your last seven years as Chair. You’ve helped steer the Company through some of the most significant changes in its history, including the NBN negotiations, which you referred to, and their very substantial impact on the business, and of course, the Company’s very successful transformation under the T22 strategy.
Today, under John's leadership, Telstra is leaner, it's more agile, and it's strongly positioned to grow, with a world class network and with infrastructure assets, that will help underpin Australia’s digital economy for decades to come. So John, once again thank you and all the very best wishes to you and Jacqui. Well done.
So following this meeting, today, I will take on the role of Chair of Telstra. I am deeply honoured to be given that opportunity. I want to thank my colleagues on the Board for their support. I am very energised and confident about Telstra’s future, and I look forward to continuing to deliver for you, our shareholders, for Telstra’s people and for our millions of customers right across this great country. Thank you, and I’ll now pass over to Vicki.
Vicki Brady:
Thank you, Craig, and good morning everyone. I am delighted to be here for my second AGM as CEO and I look forward to hearing your comments and questions.
There are three things I want to cover today. First, my priorities and where I see opportunities after 12 months in the role; our financial and operational highlights, including progress against our T25 strategy and our focus for FY24.
At the last AGM I let you know that my first priority was to radically change the experience for our customers, and that this would fuel our growth. This continues to be my highest priority and as you’ll hear today, we are making good progress. We are seeing the positive impact of product simplification, digitisation, answering consumer and small business calls in Australia and bringing our retail stores in-house.
We have customer satisfaction at record highs and customer complaints at record lows. We’re delivering better customer experiences and customers are choosing us. For example, we added more than 360,000 new mobile handheld services across our consumer, small business, and Belong brands in FY23. We have much further to go and we are focused on accelerating our digitisation and migrating our consumer and small business customers off legacy systems to help remove pain points for our people and our customers.
Looking beyond T25, as connectivity increasingly underpins the way Australians live and work, we are in a strong position to play an even more important role in Australia’s digital future. The infrastructure investments we’re making today from our intercity fibre network and submarine cable network to continuing to expand our 5G network will help enable the future and see us strategically positioned for growth.
We’re working with a range of industry and technology leaders across our Enterprise business to grow our digital capabilities in sectors critical to Australia and the world and we are well placed to support industries as they continue to digitise. We will both a connectivity and a technology partner to our customers and we will continue to invest in capabilities and partnerships to grow our offerings in areas including AI, data analytics, cloud, internet of things, and cybersecurity. We’re also bringing new and better connectivity options to regional and remote areas that will help to lift digital inclusion and participation in the digital economy. I believe Telstra has a critical role to play in Australia’s future and the significance of that role will only grow.
This is a tremendous opportunity but it requires significant investment and we continue to operate in a challenging economic environment. In addition to inflationary pressures, traffic on our mobile network is growing at around 30% each year while CPI data shows that telecommunications pricing has reduced in real terms in recent years. We need to get the balance right so we can continue to invest [sustainably] in Australia’s digital infrastructure. This has led us to make some difficult decisions in the year, including to increase some pricing but I believe this was the right call to enable us to grow and invest.
We’re also conscious many Australians are experiencing cost-of-living pressures and we need to make sure we are supporting our customers in vulnerable circumstances and providing choice. The changes we made in recent years to remove lock-in contracts and move to a multi-brand strategy mean we can continue to provide customers with flexibility and options with plans at different price points. We also helped more than 1 million customers in vulnerable circumstances stay connected in the last year. It is a complex operating environment with a lot to balance and we are focused on delivering for our customers, our teams, our shareholders and for the communities we operate in.
Turning now to our financial highlights, our FY23 results showed continued growth in reported and underlying earnings with positive momentum across our key indicators. Total income was up 5.4% and EBITDA increased 8.4%, driven by momentum from our mobiles business and support from the acquisition of Digicel Pacific. Underlying EBITDA increased by $699 million, or 9.6% to $8 billion. EBITDA growth flowed through a 13.1% increase in net profit after tax to $2.1 billion. Reported earnings per share increased 16% to $0.167. Underlying ROIC increased to 8.1% and is back above our cost of capital.
On the back of continued growth in the year, the Board resolved to pay a fully franked final dividend of 8.5 cents per share, bringing total dividends for the year to 17 cents per share and representing a 3% increase compared to last year. While our overall momentum is good, we have some parts of the business performing well and others where we continue to see challenges. Our mobiles business remains central to our growth and continues its very strong performance. Our Consumer and Small Business Fixed, International, Infrastructure, and Telstra Health businesses also grew earnings.
At the same time, there are aspects of our Enterprise Fixed business that are experiencing headwinds. In particular, Data and Connectivity and Calling declined at a greater rate than we anticipated. We are focused on maintaining momentum in fibre, scaling and simplifying our products to meet customer needs, reducing costs and [driving] growth across Network Applications and Services.
We remain disciplined on costs, particularly considering the external economic environment. We also made the decision to maintain the current ownership structure of InfraCo Fixed, at least for the medium term, as we believe this will create the greatest value for shareholders. Our focus remains on delivering long-term, sustainable growth and the objectives and principles of our capital management framework, including seeking to grow our dividend. InfraCo Fixed plays an important role in enabling this, particularly in an inflationary environment.
We’re almost at the halfway point in delivering on our T25 strategy and one year in, we are winning customers and gaining good momentum across our four strategic pillars. Starting with customer experience, Episode NPS improved 6 points to 43 and is at historic highs while TIO complaints from consumer and small business customers reduced by more than one third on the prior year and are at historic lows. We made great progress on digitisation. Overall, we have digitised 68% of our key service transactions like billing enquiries and we are well on the way to digitising all key service transactions by FY25. We continue to lead the industry on stopping scams. We launched our Scam Indicator Pilot with CBA to help detect phone scams before it’s too late, and our Cleaner Pipes program is detecting and blocking more email, SMS, and phone scams than ever before.
On network leadership, we achieved our FY23 5G population coverage target of 85% and 41% of our mobile traffic was on 5G. On our intercity fibre project, construction is well underway and we are seeing strong interest from hyper-scalers, other operators, satellite providers, and national enterprises.
The decision by the Australian Competition Tribunal and ACCC not to grant authorisation of our Multi-Operator Core Network Agreement with TPG was a disappointing outcome. However, we remain committed to improving customer experience outside metro areas. Our deals with satellite providers Starlink and OneWeb are good examples of this and will mean better experiences for our customers in regional and remote Australia.
On growth and value, we delivered growth in underlying EBITDA and EPS and we continue to show discipline on costs and improved ROIC. We have grown underlying ROIC to 8.1% and we are focused on further growth to FY25. While our cost-out ambition is being challenged by high inflation, we still expect to achieve the large majority of this by FY25. We remain absolutely committed to delivering on underlying EBITDA and EPS growth ambitions.
On the place you want to work pillar, our employee engagement score was 80, ranking us near the top companies globally, however below our 90th percentile target. From an FY19 baseline, we reduced our absolute Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 30% and we reduced our absolute Scope 3 emissions by 28%. This is great progress towards our ambition to reduce absolute emissions by at least 50% by 2030.
We continue to invest in digital leadership to help drive better customer experience and lift productivity. We are growing our capabilities in data and AI internally and through partnerships, including our Quantium Telstra venture and we are determined to be a leader in how we are applying AI. Overall, our T25 strategy is on track, including our growth ambitions in underlying EBITDA and earnings per share.
Turning now to guidance for FY24, which I am confirming today. Underlying EBITDA guidance is consistent with our T25 ambition for a mid-single-digit CAGR FY21 to FY25. Capex guidance of $3.6 billion to $3.7 billion includes around $300 million of strategic investment outside of business as usual for the intercity fibre and Viasat infrastructure projects; around $150 million for Digicel Pacific; and increased commitment to infrastructure investment in International. Importantly, we expect to continue to achieve strong cash flow, enabling us to invest in growth and deliver returns to shareholders.
FY24 will be a critical year for us with a lot to deliver. We will continue to prioritise activities with the greatest impact on customer experience and invest in the capabilities and assets we need to deliver sustainable growth. There are four key areas we are maintaining - are key to maintaining our financial momentum and delivering sustainable growth for shareholders. The first is mobile, underpinned by network leadership and delivering new network experiences for our customers. The second is growth from infrastructure and maximising InfraCo Fixed value.
The third is continuing overall growth in Fixed Consumer and Fixed Small Business segments and to support this, we have created Telstra Business to meet the specific needs of our small and medium business customers. The fourth area, as I spoke to earlier, is improving Enterprise Fixed performance. This includes driving growth in network applications and services, for example through our proposed acquisition of Versent, a market-leading technology consultancy business.
I would like to end by saying a few words about John and the enormous contribution he has made to Telstra over the last 15 years and indeed, to the Australian telecommunications sector as a whole. He has been a great support and mentor to me as well as to Andy Penn and helped steer Telstra through the most significant transformation in our history, indeed the industry’s history. John has had an immense impact on the organisation and on me personally, and on behalf of the whole Telstra team, I thank you for your guidance and support.
I would also like to offer my congratulations to Craig Dunn who will succeed John as Chair after this AGM. Craig has already made a big contribution over the seven years he has served on the Telstra Board and I’m looking forward to working closely together.
A big thank you to our incredible Telstra team from the CEO leadership team, the Board, and I, for your energy, commitment, and care for our customers and each other over the last 12 months. It is your efforts that have led to our continued growth, our progress against our T25 strategy, and our solid foundation for growth beyond T25. Finally, I’d like thank our shareholders for your continued support and investment and our Board for your leadership and guidance over the last 12 months. One year into the CEO role, I am feeling very confident about our future and I am confident that we have the right plan and are on the right path. Thank you.
John Mullen:
Great. I’ll just get myself in order. Okay. Thank you, Vicki, thank you very much. We will now move to the formal part of the meeting and the items of business are being shown on the screen. Nathan outlined at the start of the meeting how you can ask a question and vote.
Just a reminder that if you have any difficulty using the online platform, please check our virtual meeting guide on our website or call the help number shown at the top of your screen. As I mentioned earlier, voting on items 3 to 5 is being conducted by poll. Mr Chris Healey of Link Market Services, Telstra’s share registry, is acting as returning officer in relation to the poll.
We have received proxies from over 15,600 shareholders and direct votes from over 6,600 shareholders. We will display the proxy and direct votes recorded for and against each item on the screen when we get to that item. Before numbers include proxies received and available to be voted by the Chairman of the meeting.
I turn now to item 2 on today’s agenda, which is to discuss the Company’s financial statements and reports for the year ending 30 June 2023. This item provides shareholders with the opportunity to ask questions about our 2023 financial statements and reports as well as the business, operations, and management of Telstra. You can also ask questions of our auditor.
I’ll now take questions from shareholders about our 2023 results or any general questions about your Company. Shareholders, I invite you to move to a microphone to ask a question and for shareholders joining us online, please submit your written questions or raise your hand to ask an audio question through the online platform. To ensure that there’s an even spread of questions from shareholders, I will rotate the sequence for taking questions. I’ll start with online written questions, then move to questions from the floor, and then any questions on the web phone and continue on that basis. If you have a customer-related question, please see one of our team members here today. Customer-related queries received online will also be responded to by our customer service team.
Nathan, to start, do we have any online questions?
Nathan Burley:
We have some. Yes, we do. We have some online questions and the first one is from [Teresa Callaero]. Telstra’s operating expenses increased by 4.1% during the year. This would be due to the effects of inflation on Telstra’s business. Telstra increased prices to its customers by 7.1% during the year. Do you consider increasing prices to your customers by 70% above Telstra’s inflation rate to be fair and reasonable?
John Mullen:
Thank you for the question. The 4.1% figure is of course an aggregate of a huge amount of different inputs and costs, it’s not just one single cost. Telstra received cost increases across a broad range of its input costs and some of them far in excess of inflation. Electricity is an example; I think it was up $100 million or something like that last year alone. We have to respond by cutting costs elsewhere, controlling costs tightly to try to make sure that we come in with a figure that allows the Company to continue to grow its earnings. It isn’t a direct comparison. We’re very careful to minimise the amount of price increase that we put through in today’s world and certainly, as you’ve seen, it hasn’t exceeded the cost of the CPI increases which many other companies have done.
Nathan Burley:
Our next question online is from [Bruce Bebbington]. Telstra received $230 million per year under the Universal Service Guarantee 2018 until 2032 to provide fixed voice services and copper continuality. (a) When is Telstra planning to close the copper network, and (b) what are the proposed alternatives to the copper network specifically in rural and remote areas when the closures commence?
John Mullen:
Well, obviously the universal service requirements that were imposed on Telstra were done at a time when the world was a very different place and we had old copper lines everywhere and old plugs and switches and all of those things. Obviously, today the world has moved on. We still have that obligation and we still absolutely honour it but we are working with government and others to look at how will the next generation of a universal service obligation be delivered, whether it’s through satellite or other mechanisms. We’re also closing the 3G network next year I think, but again, we will not close that and we will not change any existing service until there is at least equal if not better replacement for it.
Nathan Burley:
The next question is from Bruce Bebbington again on a similar topic. Telstra advised us in July that Telstra will be shutting down the copper network within two years, by July 2025. It is currently shutting down the copper network rather than maintaining it as per the Universal Service Guarantee. Rural and remote customers are being put onto 3G Next Generation Wireless Link despite it being shut down in June 2024. Why is Telstra placing customers on 3G when 4G is available, and for those customers who do not receive 3G, what is proposed to happen to those customers?
John Mullen:
Okay. I think I half-answered that with the first question but let me just - the first answer - let me just try again. This is an evolutionary process. There are a lot of technologies available like fixed wireless and there is not just 3G as an alternative - and satellite, not just as an alternative to the old copper network. As I said, we’re working closely with government to see what that next phase should look like. We will be phasing out copper obviously, it’s becoming more and more obsolete, and we will be transitioning through 3G to 4G and ultimately even 5G for regional customers. Again, we absolutely commit no one will get their - lose their service, whether it’s copper, 3G or any other form, until there is a better replacement for it that will maintain or improve the service they receive today.
Nathan Burley:
Okay. We’ll take one more question online before moving to the floor. Another question from Bruce Bebbington. Telstra Prepaid, when migrating legacy plans, Telstra has offered customers either Telstra Plus points or talk and time credit up to three years. However, customers who elected, defaulted to the talk and time credits for up to three years are having their services deactivated during that time despite having talk, time, data credit. This deactivation does not permit the receipt of calls and access to emergency calls for six months as per the terms and conditions. Can you explain why this is occurring nationally and why Telstra offered up to three years when it cannot honour the offer and terms and conditions?
John Mullen:
Thank you. That’s a very detailed question and I think I might defer to Vicki to respond, please.
Vicki Brady:
Yes. Thank you, Bruce, for your question and you rightly point out, as we move through the migration of our prepaid customers - so, just for everyone in the room, we now have all of our prepaid customers in our new digital environment off our legacy environment where the experience is a much better one. Bruce, yes, we were very careful in making sure as we migrated customers they had the right support and plans in place. To be frank, it’s the first time I’ve heard the feedback that you’ve just given so I’d be very keen for us to follow up and understand the details because any offer we’ve made, obviously we will honour that, so that will be one I’d be happy to follow up offline and make sure we understand exactly what is happening. Thank you.
Nathan Burley:
John, we’ll now take some questions from the floor, and the first question we’ll take is from microphone 2.
Operator:
Chairman, I’d like to introduce Mike Robey to speak from the ASA.
Mike Robey:(Shareholder)
Good morning, Mr Chairman and Mr Chairman-Elect. My name is Mike Robey. I’m a volunteer monitor for a not-for-profit organisation called the Australian Shareholders Association which looks after the interests of retail shareholders. May I start by welcoming you to your swansong, Mr Chair, and say that over the years the ASA has had a respectful relationship with Telstra and has always had the ear of the Chair and has made time to hear our concerns. So, thank you very much for that.
Today I hold roughly 18,000 shares in proxy, which makes us I think the 12th largest shareholder of the Company, so retail shareholders are significant in Telstra’s stock book. I have two questions if I may. The EGM in July (sic) last year paved the way for monetisation by the potential sale of the fixed network and others, much like the success in selling 49% of the mobile towers which we enjoyed because of the special dividend, but this monetisation is now being put on hold, put on ice. Given that shareholders are potentially trading off a new special dividend, if you like, for future benefits, can you give us some idea of what the possibilities are in not selling off this and where Telstra might monetise it. That’s the first one, if I maybe make the second one as well so that I’m over with.
John Mullen:
I’ll try and keep up with it, Mike.
Mike Robey: (Shareholder)
All right. The next one is, as you mentioned in your speech, telcos have lost all their high-margin services in recent years. Those of us who remember limited calls which cost by the call, texts which were charged at $0.20, international roaming, which was a rip-off, it basically gave you an enormous amount of revenue, it’s all been replaced now by all-you-can-eat services and a data package with a choice really of speed and volume. So, where is the future going to come from, where’s the growth, because we can see sliding into more and more of the same and as you said, with higher and higher costs in the network. They’re my two general questions.
John Mullen:
Thank you, Mike and I’ve enjoyed our interactions over the years as well. We’ve met personally on a number of occasions. Let me talk firstly about the monetisation question of InfraCo. I think Vicki addressed this to a degree both in her full year comments but also in the speech just now. It was the result of an exhaustive process. There has been a completely transparent and unemotional discussion around the Board table and in management as to what is the best outcome for shareholders. If we’d thought it was to continue to monetise, i.e., sale of some of those assets, we would have done so but after a lot of discussion and advice, and despite the success of the towers, the Amplitel deal, we decided it was not in the best interests of shareholders.
The reason for that was varied but we still believe that there is upside in those assets that we should extract before we choose to monetise them. Secondly, of course, the world has changed. Since we first started talking about this, interest rates has risen, inflation has risen and asset values have come down quite sharply. It’s always a trade-off; do you sell some or all of the family silver for a quick hit today, which shareholders think is wonderful, and you give that money back but then tomorrow you now have to live with that decision and you have a smaller or a weaker company going forward. You have to balance all of those things. As I said, if we’d felt that the right decision was to monetise we would have done, and we’re not saying that it won’t be the right decision at some stage in the future, it may well be, and that will be up to obviously Vicki, the management team, and the Board at that time.
Your second question is a good one, about growth. It’s probably the question that’s top of the list for most large telcos around the world. The good news is that we are growing despite all those pressures and I think it’s quite staggering actually that the management team have been able to replace as much of those billions of dollars of lost profit that they have. The NBN effectively halved our bottom line and then those other pressures that you just mentioned took several billion dollars more away. The fact that we’re back up to $8 billion of EBITDA is a huge credit to the management team.
When you go through that and you pick it apart, obviously the area that we’re no longer receiving large benefit from is the fixed business where we used to own the assets and made a margin on them. Today NBN owns the assets and we’re a reseller with a low margin. That’s not going to change, there’ll be ups and downs in prices but that’s not going to change going forward, and there’s been a drag, but against that, if you look at our mobile performance it’s been absolutely stellar and continues to be stellar with strong growth experienced over these two years, particularly this last year has been excellent, and that growth is continuing.
The one thing about telcos and telecommunications is the future is hard to predict other than that there’s going to be a huge increase in demand for the carriage of data, especially on a mobile platform. Only a few years ago no one had heard of Netflix, and I think it’s like 25% of internet traffic or something today. 5G, it’s been here for a little bit but we’re still discovering the use cases and there will be more and more of those driverless cars and automation, AI and all these other things, and we’re right in the centre of that with our 5G infrastructure.
I feel pretty confident that you will see continued growth from our core business going forward, and we’ve got a few things around the edges like Telstra Health, which I think will do very well, as well in the future, but our core mobiles business is going to continue to drive the growth of the Company for the next foreseeable while.
Nathan Burley:
Thanks, John. We will now move to microphone 1 for the next question.
Operator:
Chairman, I would like to introduce Howard Pascoe from Melbourne to speak.
Howard Pascoe: (Shareholder)
Good morning, everyone. Congratulations having your AGM in Melbourne, wonderful to see, congratulations, Board. Secondly, MCG, if you used to go there when you first started, Mr Chairman, remember that you couldn’t make a mobile phone call during the grand final or the finals. The telcos couldn’t handle the volume of traffic. Now you go to the MCG during the finals and the mobile phone reception is excellent, which means that the technology has advanced out of sight. Now, they were the good points. What happens if you die? Now the issue is, single account holders if you die, you’re hearing on the media that the telco wants to speak to the account holder and they can’t speak to the account holder because the account holder is dead. Now what the issue is that in this audience you could say that there’s more than a third of the population in this room have not got a will. So, if you die, what happens to your accounts with your telco?
The other question I ask, and the first person I met at Telstra at the entrance to [Jeff’s Shed] was you’ve got a mobile phone, it’s a young person, have you told your telco the authorised people that can act on your behalf if say you die in a car accident? The person said no. The question I ask the Board is should all your customers have informed the telco the authorised people if they haven’t done their will or listed powers of attorney, have you got the authorised people on the records in case the person dies?
I’ve contacted Federal Parliament, the Federal Minister, last year was Paul Fletcher, about the issue. I spoke to - I’ve contacted Michelle Rowland, the current Federal Minister for Telecommunications, complained about the power of the Australian Telecommunications Act of 1997, [this was] all embracing, it makes it so difficult for people that die and they haven’t informed their telco about the authorised people who act on their behalf. It's an issue that politicians find hard to deal with. It’s still outstanding, and love your comment.
John Mullen:
Thank you, Howard, for that question. I’d have to say firstly I sympathise with you, having lost a father and a mother-in-law in the last 12 months, and having to deal with the practicalities of losing a loved one, I absolutely agree. Unfortunately it’s not just telecommunication services, it’s across a whole range of people’s positions and activities in society that are quite complicated to fix when on the time of death.
Obviously from the telco perspective, obviously we don’t know when someone’s going to die and quite often people’s minds are elsewhere, understandably, they don’t think well the first thing I need to do is to call my telco or bank or whoever it is, to let them know of the deceased. They’ve got much more pressing matters to deal with, so inevitably we send bills to people sometimes who have died, without our knowing et cetera.
Our systems are far from perfect but there is actually I know a great focus on it right now to try and put better structures in place. Remember from the other perspective, we can’t just take someone’s word over the telephone to transfer a phone account to someone else, there are a lot of probity issues there to make sure that - and domestic violence situations and all sorts of other things, you’ve got to be extremely careful to protect the customer’s identity and the like.
It's a very complicated thing but your question is absolutely valid and to the point and I can assure you we are all over that.
Howard Pascoe: (Shareholder)
Thank you.
Nathan Burley:
I think we’ll stay with microphone number one.
Operator:
Chairman, I would like to introduce [Dell Billar] to speak.
Dell Billar: (Shareholder)
Good morning Mr Chairman and CEO, I will be very brief. You have my congratulations for your achievements, it looks like in your presentation you are involving almost everything what moves on this country, which I don’t believe is right, if was right, my apologies, it’s too much of it. Why don’t you dwell on negatives to make sure that you can improve? Because if everything is honkey dory, there’s nothing for you to do. Is that?
Secondly, I would like to know why the shares from $7.00, nobody mentioned that, came down to whatever it is today? Secondly, I believe that there is a culture of management or Directors which they take their bags from one company, goes to another one, and so on. The question is very hard, how many Directors have been in the Telstra Board and left Telstra since Telstra became private? Thank you.
John Mullen:
Wow, okay. Well so we never said, I don’t think, that we think everything is honkey dory, to the contrary, we’ve obviously had some good successes but we have plenty of problems as well and we’re very conscious of those issues which we’re working on the whole time.
That’s what the management and Board does. In a meeting like this we just take two or three things into a short story, but believe you me behind the scenes there’s a huge amount of discussion about the challenges, and I mentioned some of them, customer experience, we’ve made some huge improvements but there’s a long way to go, so we spend a lot of time talking about that. So, not all honkey dory but we’re certainly hopefully going in the right direction.
Market share, I think we probably, if I understood right, maybe referring to the fixed market share where, or the reseller of the NBN, was that the question?
Vicki Brady:
Share price.
John Mullen:
Oh share price, sorry I thought you said market share. Well share price, I come back to what I said before, we’ve lost many billions of dollars of earnings, $3.5 billion from the NBN alone, voice I think was close to $1 billion, SMS probably many hundreds of millions, global roaming, all of those things. All of those have gone and if the management hadn’t done a fantastic job to build the Company back up again, the share price would be a lot lower than it is today.
Lastly on the culture, how many directors since we started? My god, that one I have no idea, but we can dig it out if you’d really like to know, and get that information to you.
Dell Billar: (Shareholder)
The reason is because those people, they put their things in their bags and they left, that’s the problem. With your permission I would like to tell you a little thing. I was a share - sorry, a phone user of Telstra, I went overseas and I paid $250 to keep my number when I came back. I gave up all those numbers because they were so complicated to go out of Telstra because they could not offer. What I am trying to say on what you’re losing is on a grass roots, on a shops which are people very poorly trained and it’s the fault of management, not their fault, and unfriendly behaviour to the customer.
So, you may have go to have a look and visit to see how those people they react or interact with the customers, thank you.
John Mullen:
Thank you, you’re absolutely right about the stores and one of the things that’s not honkey dory is the performance of the stores at the moment, we know that. We’ve as you may be aware, transitioned them from third party ownership into wholly owned ownership by the Company and we’ve had a number of issues. Some issues are consistent with the rest of industry, trying to attract qualified personnel during a difficult labour market, but also some problems of our own making around systems and the like.
So, we’re very aware of that, but again I know that management are right on top of that issue, but thank you for raising it, it’s perfectly justified.
Nathan Burley:
Thank you, John, we’ll now move back to online questions as there’s no web phone questions at this time. This question is from James. Regarding copper being phased out in two years, is it still being installed from fibre node to property at the moment?
John Mullen:
If the questions are we still installing copper, then the answer is no. Copper is obviously becoming increasingly redundant, is being replaced by fibre where appropriate, and as you get out into the regional areas, as we were discussing before, by other technologies that have been worked on today including fixed wireless.
Nathan Burley:
Our next question is on behalf of [Helen Lotus] Super Pty Ltd. Question to the executor of Telstra. Some people are switching to other providers. Telstra’s services are $20 expensive than any other service provider. What is Telstra doing to retain these customers?
John Mullen:
Well we actually very consciously maintain that price premium because we know that we also maintain a service premium, so Telstra offers, in our view, the best service in the market and we charge for that. In terms of market share, we’ve actually gained market share and certainly holding our own or gaining market share in most segments. So, I think hopefully a lot of customers understand and accept the premium that you have to pay to access the best network.
Nathan Burley:
Our next question is from [Peter Calliero]. Thank you for holding a hybrid meeting. As a shareholder recovering from an operation, you can understand that I am in favour of hybrid meetings. My question is, how much extra does it cost Telstra to conduct a hybrid meeting compared to a physical meeting only?
John Mullen:
Thank you, that’s a great question. Look, it doesn’t cost financially a huge amount more. The administration and the work behind the scenes, which is run by my colleagues here, we Directors just turn up and they do all the hard work, that side of it is a lot more complicated and I think we’re going to probably start a university course in how to vote at AGMs soon, the way it’s getting so complicated.
But the team’s managed that, so not being flippant but the actual increase in cost is minimal, the increase in workload for team is considerable but it’s worth it because it’s very important to us that all shareholders can participate.
Nathan Burley:
We’ll continue online. This question is from [Joe Alvario]. Can the CEO confirm that she is not using Telstra resources to campaign for her views that Australia Day should be abolished? Many shareholders and customers would be against abolishing Australia Day, as this is a very important day to them.
John Mullen:
I can let Vicki answer for herself but I can assure you, personal views do not carry the day in the decisions made by Telstra as a corporation. We collectively discuss between management and the Board and we adopt positions like the Voice and other things like that. In Australia Day the decision was taken to allow employees to choose another day if they so wish, but that is not the personal whim of any one person, myself, Vicki, Craig or anybody else, it’s a conscious decision made by the management and Board as to what’s best for the Company. If you want to add anything else?
Vicki Brady:
Yes, thank you for the question. So our enterprise agreement that was voted on last year by our employees, in that enterprise agreement it offers the option for our employees to choose which day they would like to celebrate Australia Day. So, that was voted on by our employees and overwhelmingly supported, so we have that flexibility.
Nathan Burley:
Okay, we’ll take one more question online before moving back to the floor. This question is from Joe Alvario again. Can Telstra stop using resources to make political statements during election campaigns like it did with the referendum on the Voice, which it publicly supported? This was wrong and did not respect shareholders and customers against the Voice, which included some Aboriginal people. It was shareholder abuse and an attempt to curry favour with the government.
John Mullen:
Sorry, I disagree with that. Again, I think I mentioned at the beginning we had a lot of debate as to the best approach to take on that issue, as with many other social issues, and the majority of social issues the Company doesn’t take a position, we don’t think it’s appropriate. But every now and again we do think it’s appropriate, particularly in the case of the Voice, where we are not a Company that has some peripheral relationship or contact with those communities. We’re engaged every single day with Indigenous communities across Australia.
We’ve built more blackspots, I think close to 1,000 with 80% of the blackspot coverage that the country enjoys today has been Telstra that’s been there. We don’t make any money out of those services, they are there to bring connectivity to the bush and to contribute to quality of life in those communities. So, we think our engagement with the Indigenous community is really important, and therefore in our case, it’s not the case for every company but in our case we felt it was the right decision to support that case.
Nathan Burley:
Okay, we’ll move back to the floor, question four has a question.
Operator:
Chairman, I’d like to introduce [Ian Hamilton] from Melbourne, to speak.
Ian Hamilton: (Shareholder)
Good morning. Before I get to the question, I’d like to compliment Telstra on two things that they’ve done recently, the first one is including unlimited calls in the fixed home line service fee, this brings this service into line with mobile plans. It was about five years too late but at last it’s been done. The second one is that there is now free public phone box calls, most people aren’t aware of this and this is a good community service, however it’s getting hard to find a phone box to use. They’re being removed at an alarming rate.
You need to keep these in existence, in appropriate locations, particularly for emergency use. The main body of the question is that some companies using Telstra telecommunication services to conduct their businesses are making monstrous profits, mainly through social media and through advertising they charge through social media. This makes you their business partner.
Considering most people seem almost surgically attached to their mobile phone and seem to refer to it every five minutes, even take it to bed with them, and it’s more than a mobile phone, it’s a handheld telecommunication service, wireless internet on which phone calls can be made. Are you getting a fair share of the profits and how can you get more of a share of it?
Also, scammers and fraudsters are using the same service to conduct their crime, including lying about being Telstra staff. Can even more be done to stop them and prosecute them? Say when someone rings up and says I’m calling you from Telstra, and this seems to happen a lot, once they say those words in combination, can the call just be cut out, disconnected, and if they really are calling from Telstra, if they could punch in an authorisation code within five seconds, it would prove to anyone who picks up the phone that they’re getting a genuine Telstra call?
Has Telstra considered setting up an historical equipment, phones, phone books and phone box display in all Australian capital city museums, as well as selling and making money from old and unwanted telecommunications memorabilia? Including phone boxes, some people seem to want to buy one, like that phone box you can see on the mural behind, there’s people that want one of them to put in their house or in their back yard. Are you able to sell old ones to them at a price so that you cannot just throwing your stuff in the tip and just getting rid of it?
John Mullen:
Well that’s quite a collection of questions, so let me try and answer them in turn. Firstly, thank you for the compliment about the two things that you think are good, which we obviously think the same, so the unlimited calls firstly and then you did mention the free calls from the public phone boxes, I think there’ve been over 23 million calls made since we introduced that. 250,000 of which more or less were 000 calls, so people who were really in a bad situation. So, I think hopefully the community will recognise that’s a pretty wonderful service and we’re very, very proud of it.
We’re also, I can’t remember the numbers but Vicki can correct me, I know we’re starting free Wi-Fi as well from I think we’ve got it in 1,500 or something of that sort of number of boxes, how many?
Vicki Brady:
3,000.
John Mullen:
3,000 sorry, and that is also going to be expanded by another 10,000 or 12,000 boxes in due course, so we’re very committed to that initiative and I think it’s been a really good one.
Your second question was around fair share of data or the revenues from the explosion of data. I actually referred to that in my opening comments. That’s one of the biggest challenges for telco, so what you use on your mobile every day, whether it’s Facebook or internet generally or whatever you’re doing, those companies are obviously making a lot of money out of the connectivity that telcos provide and we actually get paid proportionally less and less. It's a big challenge, the industry is on it and it’s very topical for us and our management team as to how to ensure that we get our fair share of the revenue that’s generated by these new services.
You mentioned I think your third one was scam calls and the like. Again, I think we, both myself and Vicki, listed the sheer number and the magnitude of calls and texts and emails that we intercept is mindboggling. When you think of how many still get through, it just shows the scale of the problem. Your question about a code, that’s been looked at, the problem is firstly if they can find out bank accounts or other things, they’ll find out the code pretty quickly as well, so then can you even trust the code?
People don’t have access to that code at the time they make the call, et cetera. So, Telstra will never ring you up and ask you for your bank account details or any of these things, and if you are concerned, you’re better off hanging up and calling back a registered Telstra number so you know you’re speaking to a Telstra person.
It is a scourge and a plague on our society, obviously not just Telstra, it’s the banks, it’s everyone is in the same situation. We’re doing everything we can, I think we’re doing more than most.
The museum display, well we do have it in museum but I don’t think it’s in every capital city, but we will take that on notice and you’re obviously welcome to go and see the museum at any time. The last question was phone boxes, I don’t know, but I happen to have an old phone box in my house, which was bought by or acquired by the previous owner, I don’t know where it came from but you obviously - well it’s in the garden, not in the house, you obviously can do so. But maybe Vicki put it on the next Board meeting agenda [unclear] thank you.
Ian Hamilton: (Shareholder)
Where is your museum?
John Mullen:
In Hawthorn.
Ian Hamilton: (Shareholder)
Thanks.
John Mullen:
Thank you, great questions.
Nathan Burley:
Okay, we will move back to online questions, John. This question is from Bruce Bebbington again. Both the Chair and CEO have commented on support to disabled, homeless, family and domestic violence and mental health. Many of these customers rely on prepaid as they cannot access postpaid or fixed services. Prepaid customers have been receiving texts advising them to recharge to be able to make calls and texts while they are in credit.
If these customers, many of whom are under financial stress, have recharged based on the text and the website and paid when they do not need to, will Telstra discontinue this practice and refund any moneys paid as a result of this practice?
John Mullen:
Well look, I can’t comment on any specific incidents, I’m obviously not aware of them. But the reason that these texts are sent is to warn people who hadn’t otherwise noticed that they will lose their service if they don’t recharge. We do the same if you don’t pay your postpaid, if you don’t pay your bill. You don’t just get cut off overnight, you get an alert to tell you that that is the situation. Because everybody can miss those sorts of things if you’re busy. I think it’s a practice that is actually the benefits far outweigh the negatives.
Nathan Burley:
Okay, we’ll continue online. Joe Alvario has another question. It is not right to charge customers who choose to receive paper bills a fee as they would have many valid reasons for making this choice and should not have to state their reasons for doing so as this could breach their privacy. Can this policy please stop?
John Mullen:
Look again we realise that that’s an inconvenience for some, but the world is going digital and we have to go with it, so yes, we do impose a small charge for a paper bill, but there are also a whole range of exceptions to that too. If you don’t have internet access or other things like that, we waive that charge.
There is a, I can’t remember all of the issues but I know that there are quite a number of situations in which you would not get charged. So, again we’re very careful about how we do that, but it is, unfortunately, the way the world is going.
Nathan Burley:
Okay, we’ll move back to the floor. Microphone one has a question.
Operator:
Chairman, I would like to introduce [Bronnie Gerincheck] from Melbourne, to speak.
Bronnie Gerincheck: (Shareholder)
Chairman, my question is to Vicki. During your speech, you said you’re grateful to all the staff that do the work. Why is it that as an ex-employee over 40 years, the alumni [discount] has been removed? Also the manner in which it was done was pretty atrocious, that I would suspect. Secondly, since then you’ve increased the price by at least $10 and I’d like to know why please?
Vicki Brady:
Thank you, Bronnie for raising it. So, the first thing I would say is we do recognise and appreciate the loyalty of all of our alumni of Telstra. You’re right, we took the discount away, it was taken away as part of our move to our new digital stack, so as we simplify our products and plans, we had to make the choice about taking away some complexity, and unfortunately building the discount in our new environment in the timeframe we needed to migrate, was a trade-off, a difficult trade-off we made.
I fully accept the first round of communications to our alumni discount holders was not good enough. We did follow up with subsequent communications and so I apologise for the first round of communications, it could have been handled far better. It is, unfortunately it is an example of one of those trade-offs we’ve had to make as we move to the new environment where the experience is significantly better for our customers and part of driving the efficiency in the business to be able to deliver the overall investments and returns in the business. But apologies for the first round of communications.
Nathan Burley:
John, we’ll move to microphone number two.
Operator:
Chairman, I’d like to introduce [Alan Brigill] from Hastings.
Alan Brigill: (Shareholder)
Hello everyone. I haven’t got much to lose because I’m dying. I’m addressing you, Vicki Brady, I believe you’re corrupt, you destroyed Telstra BigPond email and you bought in this other rubbish that still doesn’t work. I rang up and spoke to your 2IC, she rang me back and I was assured it would all be fixed up. I believe from what I’ve been told it was sold to Thunderbird. Well Thunderbird’s not the best to use. I’d actually set myself up to do an OHS degree and I found that Telstra BigPond was the best system I’d ever seen in my life, and I’ve been using the bloody internet since it started, I was one of the first to have the internet in my house.
I used Dodo originally. I just cannot believe how you have destroyed Telstra BigPond, and I’d like to bloody well know why you did it, why you got rid of the best email system, the easiest to use and now you’ve got this bullshit with this blue and bloody brown one that I had a look the other night, it still doesn’t work. Can you answer that? Have you got the guts to answer that?
John Mullen:
Alan, I’ll answer that one. Firstly, if you make offensive statements to anyone up here, we’re not going to answer your question, full stop, you can go somewhere else, right? But if you have a legitimate complaint about BigPond, I use BigPond too, I know some of the issues, if you have a legitimate complaint, we will do everything we can. There are people here in the audience who, staff members, sit down before you go, understand exactly what your problem is and we’ll have the senior management sitting here to deal with it.
Alan Brigill: (Shareholder)
It’s actually very legitimate.
John Mullen:
I’m not saying it isn’t.
Alan Brigill: (Shareholder)
The best system that I’d ever seen. I looked at all the others, I looked at Outlook, I looked at all the others and they were rubbish, garbage, and even Thunderbird’s got problems.
John Mullen:
Alan, this is a Telstra AGM, there are lots of other shareholders here. You have raised…
Alan Brigill: (Shareholder)
I know it is, that’s why I’ve turned up I’m [inaudible] here in Melbourne.
John Mullen:
You have raised a specific issue relating to your service, a legitimate one and we will deal with it, but please not in front of 400 people.
Alan Brigill: (Shareholder)
Yeah, but there’s probably thousands of other people that got chopped off on May 22 I think it was, without any notice, there was no notice, nothing.
John Mullen:
I think I’ve answered the question. Alan, please sit down or we will cut the microphone off. Thank you.
Nathan Burley:
We’ll take another question from microphone number two.
Operator:
Chairman, I’d like to introduce Fred Cornelius from Essendon.
Fred Cornelius: (Shareholder)
Chairman and Board, I have two issues. One is you’ve increased your prices for Foxtel and the internet, that’s fine, but the service hasn’t improved. I have frequent dropouts, frozen screens, so while there are price increases, what about increasing the service? The second issue I have is that some time ago, I bought Telstra equipment and then a few years later Telstra decided that they were going to change the system and all this equipment became incompatible and redundant.
Telstra offered no compensation to replace those items. If you’re going to change the system when we spend hundreds of dollars buying your equipment, don’t you think it should be right that you should replace it when you put a new system in, and give us a new item that’s compatible with the system you’ve put in, instead of just shutting it off?
John Mullen:
Thank you, again I’m sorry I’m obviously not aware of the specific details of the issue that you’ve had. What you’re saying sounds perfectly reasonable, but again all I can ask is we do have customer service teams here in the auditorium, so before you leave, make sure you grab one of them and I can give you my mobile number, or actually not mine anymore, Craig’s. We will follow it through and give you an answer on your particular issue. But I’m obviously powerless to answer it here because I don’t know what’s happened.
Fred Cornelius: (Shareholder)
The point I was trying to make with the second issue is that why doesn’t Telstra have a system in place to automatically replace these items, without us having to go and bring it up at something like the AGM or one of your technical assistants? Put in a system where we automatically get in, we don't have to put through this mill.
John Mullen:
Yes. I get you and we all - we do replace a lot of equipment with that. I'm not - it depends what sort of equipment and why and - but we will look into it for you and we will fix it for you.
Fred Cornelius: (Shareholder)
Thank you.
John Mullen:
A pleasure.
Nathan Burley:
We'll move back to online questions. This is a follow-up question from Bruce Bebbington. Noting the responses about the copper network, does this mean that my landline will not be disconnected on 29 November and forced on to 3G and satellite when it doesn't work? Will the Board commit that all copper landline closures and forced migrations will cease immediately? Further, will the Board commit that those customers who have been forced migrated will have their service method reviewed with a view to reopening closed copper landlines?
John Mullen:
Look, I can't make any commitment on it, exactly what will happen to which bit of copper when, but I think I've already said we do make the commitment nobody will lose the service they have, whether it's through replacement of copper, it's the closure of 3G or any other service. It will only be done when an alternative offers at least as good, if not better service is available to that customer. So you will not be disadvantaged.
Nathan Burley:
The next question is online, and this is a comment from Peter Calliero. This shareholder is in favour of your decision on Australia Day and The Voice.
John Mullen:
Well, thank you. You know, that's a - there's a famous quote, which I think is - was by Voltaire's biographer that: I disagree with everything you said, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. I think that should characterise all these debates. We live in a pluralistic society, where people have different views. We respect all of those views and we respect that not all of us will always agree with everything, either the Company does or decisions that are made in the public arena.
Nathan Burley:
Next question online is from Joe Alvario again. What efforts are being made to improve Telstra customer service? It only takes a look at the customer reviews on the internet to discover the awful customer experiences that occur. This is no - this no doubt results in lost sales, as other customers choose not to be subject to the poor treatment from some Telstra staff. Customer service does not seem to be an important priority.
John Mullen:
Okay. Well, I think I tried to actually address that upfront in my opening comments. Even one bad customer experience is one too many, and we take that very seriously. I think I mentioned some of the statistics of the improvements that the Management team has made. It's been absolutely dramatic reductions of - I think we had 36 million inbound customer service calls. They've been reduced to below 10 million. Now, huge reductions. The Ombudsman's complaints down by [around] 70% and the like. Obviously, when you've got 18 million customers or whatever, even a small percentage is still a lot of people. So we're very, very conscious of that and I don't think there is a higher priority, Vicki, for you and your team, but to continue to drive out all of those complaints.
Nathan Burley:
John, there are no further questions online or on the floor or on the web phone for this item, so that concludes the question session for this item.
John Mullen:
Okay. Yes. Okay. We've got no web phone.
Nathan Burley:
No. There's no web phone questions, John, so we can move on to the next item.
John Mullen:
Okay. I can now move to item three. Yes?
Nathan Burley:
Yes.
John Mullen:
Okay. Next up is item three, Director election and re-election. As I mentioned earlier, Maxine Brenner and Ming Long are standing for election and Bridget Loudon and Elana Rubin are standing for re-election. Their details are set out in the notice of meeting. Items 3(a), (b), (c) and (d) will be voted on separately, but to assist with the efficient conduct of the meeting, for the benefit of all shareholders here today, I'll deal with the discussions of Maxine and Ming's elections and Bridget and Elana's re-elections together. So I would now like to invite Maxine, Ming, Bridget and Elana to address the meeting. While we hear from the Directors, if you have any questions on their elections and re-elections, please come to your nearest microphone or, if you are online, please submit your written questions or raise your hand on the web phone. Who's first? Maxine, I think. Yes.
Maxine Brenner:
Me. Yes. Thank you, Chairman, and good morning, fellow shareholders. I too would like to pay my respects to the traditional owners of the land on which we meet and pay my respects to elders past and present. I'm grateful to have the opportunity to introduce myself to you, the owners of Telstra. As an executive, I was both a lawyer and investment banker, specialising in mergers and acquisitions, corporate finance, restructures and large corporate transformations. This led to my being appointed to the takeovers panel, where I not only helped develop policy for takeover regulation in Australia, but also adjudicated over a number of significant takeovers in Australia. At the same time, I embarked on my non-executive career, which started over 28 years ago.
Since then, I've sat on over 15 boards, ranging over a wide number of industries, including mining, energy, airline, airports, finance, property, food and supermarkets, education and, with your support, telecommunications. I bring that wide, cross-sectoral body of experience to my role at Telstra. During that 28 period, there have been achievements and, inevitably, some mistakes. I'm passionate about learning from both and committed to bringing the insights from each of those areas to my work at Telstra. Since February this year, when I was first appointed, I've worked as a member of the Audit and Risk and Nomination Committees. I've both the commitment and time to devote myself to the requirements of my role on the committees and the Board. With your support, I'd feel privileged to continue working with my colleagues on the Board and Vicki and her excellent Management team to build upon the strong heritage of your Company. Finally, I'd like to acknowledge the outstanding leadership of our Chair, John Mullen.
He has led our Company through difficult times and to where we are today. Thank you, John. I look forward also to working with Craig as our new Chair. Thank you.
John Mullen:
Thank you very much, Maxine. I think, Ming, you're next. Yes.
Ming Long:
Thanks, John. Is that on? Yes. Good morning, everyone. My name is Ming Long and I'm honoured to have the opportunity to speak to you regarding my appointment to the Telstra Board. I can scarcely believe that when I arrived as a migrant in Australia over 40 years ago that I would have the opportunity to serve on such an iconic Australian company Board. At that time, we'd moved from a capital city overseas to a small country town in regional New South Wales. I have a deep appreciation for the country, its people and the possibility of what it can achieve. I believe Telstra is integral to Australia having a connected future where everyone can thrive. As we face an increasingly complex, connected and disrupted world from climate to AI, it is more important than ever that we understand the diverse perspectives and expectations of our stakeholders, so that we can deliver for them with confidence.
I am very conscious of the important role a Director on the Board plays in the stewardship and governance of Telstra in this environment and to continue to deliver enduring value to our current and future shareholders, but also to our current and future customers, employees and other important stakeholders. I want to express my deep gratitude for the opportunity to serve on the Board of Telstra, and I'm confident with my experience in finance, sustainability and real estate, they arm me to serve on the Board of such a nationally significant company. Thank you very much for your time and consideration.
John Mullen:
Thank you, Ming. Bridget.
Bridget Loudon:
Thank you, Chair. Good morning. Good morning, everyone. My name is Bridget Loudon. I was born here in Australia, but I spent most of my childhood in Ireland. I returned to the lucky country when I was 21 and I'm very, very proud to call Australia home. It has been an immense privilege to serve on the Board of Telstra over these past three years. It's also been my honour to serve on the People and Remuneration Committee. Telstra is on a bold journey of transformation and growth, sitting at the heart of a country on a similar journey. Our T25 strategy will see us build on the foundations of hard work over these past few years to reach new heights in a digital world. It's a pleasure to address you today to seek my re-election to the Board. As a Non-Executive Director, I hope to continue to bring a deep focus on the lives, experiences, hopes and challenges of our customers. I also hope to bring fresh perspectives and a natural instinct for how great technology products get built and how companies can prepare for the future.
I draw on my deep experience in entrepreneurship, technology and commercialising products and services in the digital world. So thank you for listening to me, and with your support, I look forward to serving this excellent company and its shareholders for another three years. Thank you.
John Mullen:
Thanks, Bridget. Last, Elana. Please.
Elana Rubin:
Thank you. Good morning, all, and I also pay my respects to First Nation people who might be attending. I am seeking re-election as a Director of Telstra. It's been three years since I first introduced myself to you, and much has happened through that period. At the time of my election, I spoke about my pleasure in joining a company which is so central to how we live, work and engage and my pride in how Telstra was responding to the COVID situation to support employees, customers and vulnerable members of our community. These sentiments remain true. I also spoke about the privilege of being involved in the governance of organisations and my belief that companies that have regard to the needs of all their stakeholders are best placed to deliver long-term sustainable performance. Milestones over my first term at Telstra has been the finalisation of the T22 strategy and the development of our current T25 strategy with its focus on growth, improved customer experiences and strong shareholder returns.
We brought our retail stores in-house, moved our consumer contact centres onshore, transitioned to new technology, monetised our Towers business and worked to reduce our impact on the environment. Throughout these initiatives, I've been an active contributor to the Board discussion and have brought my diverse experience and perspective from working across a wide range of sectors to the discussion, as we navigated through many issues, including improving financial performance and customer satisfaction, reducing reliance on legacy platforms, increasing cybersecurity, driving employee engagement, promoting sustainability and climate change, just to mention a few. Throughout all our discussions, I've been mindful of balancing shareholder, customer and broader stakeholder interests. I've also chaired the People and Remuneration Committee and one of two Directors with rural and regional responsibility and sat on the Audit Committee for a period.
But perhaps the most important milestone of the last three years for the Company has been the appointment of Vicki Brady as CEO following Andy Penn's retirement. They say that the most important function a Board undertakes is the appointment of a CEO. I'm confident that we could not of selected a better CEO than Vicki. You've heard today that we've also appointed a new Chair, Craig Dunn, following the retirement of John Mullen as Chair. I join others in saying quite publicly and loudly that John has been a fabulous Director and Chair and has made a huge contribution to Telstra. I'm delighted with Craig's appointment and I believe he will steward the Company well through the completion of T25 and beyond. I'm very proud of the work that Telstra does in delivering for shareholders, customers and supporting the community. With your continued support, I look forward to being elected for another term. Thank you.
John Mullen:
Thank you, Elana, and, thank you, fellow Directors. So the Board, other than Maxine and Ming, in respect of their own election, of course, and Bridget and Elana in respect of their own re-election, the Board recommends the election and re-election of each Director. The proxy and direct voting position for items 3(a), (b), (c) and (d) are now being shown on the screen. As indicated in the notice of meeting, I intend to vote all available proxies in favour of the elections of Maxine and Ming and the re-elections of Bridget and Elana. I will now take questions from shareholders on item three. Nathan, over to you.
Nathan Burley:
John, we do have some questions on item three online. The first question is on behalf of Helen Lotus Super Pty Ltd. With the re-election of the new Director, Maxine Brenner, there's scepticism and concerns and issues that I wish to raise, as she used to work for the Qantas Board and that she was and is responsible for Qantas' governance failure and that she does not have any experience or capability in customer service. Why should I vote for her?
John Mullen:
Thank you. So, firstly, questions relating to anything to do with Qantas or Maxine's role as a Qantas Director are inappropriate and we will not be answering them. Now, this is a Telstra AGM. If you have questions about anything to do with Maxine's tenure at Qantas, I respectfully suggest that you attend the Qantas AGM and you ask those questions there. All I can do is talk about Maxine's role as a Director of Telstra, where she is a first-class and exemplary Director. Maxine is smart, engaged, very experienced and is a strong contributor, with a lovely personal style. In my view and the views of my fellow Directors, shareholders are very lucky to have someone of her calibre representing them on the Telstra Board and we don't intend to say any more than that. Lastly, if you will permit me an observation, though, obviously shareholders are free to do whatever they want, but sometimes judgments are made a long way away by people who never had a - even known a particular Director and I'm not referring to Maxine at all here now.
It's just a general comment - whose election is being discussed. Now, of course, there are bad Directors and it's our job to address that through an appraisal system. We have a very tough and rigorous appraisal system of Director performance every year. Now, as Chairman, over the years, in different companies, I've had to ask a few Directors to step down. But I don't think it's unfair to ask shareholders to give us a little credit when the Board recommends a Director for election. Now, sometimes shareholders trust us with billions of dollars of investment decisions, the appointment of CEO is probably the most important decision a Board can make, but not a judgment as to whether a particular Director is a good Director or not. Now, we know Directors here and in other places well. We work alongside them every day and we see their contribution firsthand. I can assure you that at Telstra or at anywhere else, we would never put anyone up for election who we did not feel would do a really good job on shareholders' behalf.
So I've said my bit; I'll stop there and go to any further questions.
Nathan Burley:
John, there is no further questions online or the floor or the web phone for this item. So that concludes the question session for item three.
John Mullen:
Okay. Thank you. I'll get my act together. Okay. So - yes. Thank you, Nathan and shareholders. So we - that's finished our discussion of item three. If you haven't already done so, please submit your votes online or complete your voting card for items 3(a), (b), (c) and (d). So I now move to items four and five on today's agenda, which relate to the allocation of equity, to your CEO, Vicki Brady, [under] Telstra's F23 - financial year '23 executive variable remuneration plan, or EVP, and the adoption of our 2023 remuneration report. Items four and five will be voted on separately, but as they both relate to remuneration-related matters, we'll simply deal with the discussion of these two items together. Details of the proposed grants to Vicki under item four are set out in the notice of meeting.
Vicki's total remuneration package for [FY23] during which she held the role of Chief Financial Officer and Group Executive Strategy and Finance until 31 August 2022 and then CEO for the remainder of '23, FY23, included variable remuneration delivered through the EVP. In summary, a number of restricted shares and performance rights to be granted was based on the dollar value of Vicki's individual EVP outcome and her individual EVP outcome was determined by the Board, taking into consideration Telstra’s performance during the 2023 financial year against the specific measures set by the Board as well as her individual performance.
The Board, other than Vicki, of course, considers Vicki's total remuneration package for the 2023 financial year, including the proposed grants to be appropriate in all the circumstances and we recommend that shareholders vote in favour of items 4A and B.
Item 5 provides an opportunity for shareholders to comment on and ask questions about our 2023 remuneration report and whilst the vote on this item is advisory, the Board takes the outcome of the vote into consideration when reviewing Telstra’s remuneration practices and policies. The Board recommends that shareholders vote in favour of item 5 the adoption of our remuneration report. The proxy and direct voting positions for items 4 and 5 are being shown now on the screen. As indicated in the Notice of Meeting, I intend to vote all available proxies in favour of the grants to Vicki and the adoption of the remuneration report.
If you have any questions regarding items 4 or 5, please now come to your nearest microphone, alternatively, as before, you can submit your written questions or raise your hand to ask an audio question through the online platform.
I will be concluding the AGM at the end of this question session, so if you have any final questions on any subject that you would like to ask about your company that are relevant to shareholders as a whole, please also ask those now. I’ll now take questions from shareholders on items 4 and 5, as well as any remaining questions on the early items of business. Nathan, do we have any other online questions?
Nathan Burley:
Yes, we do, John and the first online question on this item comes from [Hong Nyen Jin]. Telstra’s share price has dropped its value by more than 10% in the last four months. How was this reflected in item 4 and 5?
John Mullen:
Thank you. Obviously, we don’t have any direct control over how the share price goes up and down and items 4 and 5 refer to the remuneration practice for the entire year that obviously takes place and is finalised before the events of the last month or two. So though we’re very comfortable that the messaging and the intent of everything I've just said relating to the prior financial year have been very appropriate and share price will go up and down, unfortunately, that’s the market. Let’s hope it goes up.
Nathan Burley:
Thanks, John. We’ll now take a question from the floor from microphone number two.
Operator:
Chairman, I’d like to introduce Mike Robey from the ASA.
Mike Robey: (Shareholder)
Mr Chairman, we share your concerns with the remuneration report complexity and depth. We would like to state that in fact of all the companies on the ASX, yours is probably the best laid out, so even though it’s a bloody long read, it is quite well laid out and some of the descriptions of why certain targets and so on are very well communicated. So we think it’s a model for other listed companies. We do have one small problem which we talked about at a previous time, but I think it’s probably worth shareholders hearing about it.
Vicki’s achievement of 75% of maximum was pretty much the same as Andy’s, but in fact, all of the staff working under her received considerably less. So how can you have the boss get a greater share of their maximum and the staff that actually do the work get a lower share? So that’s our only concern, thank you.
John Mullen:
Thank you, Mike. I think I’d start by correcting your last bit about the staff who do all the work. I think Vicki works harder than anybody, so it’s a collective effort. But yeah, no, look, there was a very - it’s a smart observation, but there is a reason for it. So under the EVP plan, the senior leadership all end up with one collective result as you rightly said. But we then have introduced a multiplier on individual personal performance that can increase or decrease your relative percentage payout against that communal target.
In Vicki’s case, we genuinely think she has made an unbelievably good start. She’s been incredibly diligent, she’s taken the company - the handover from the company seamlessly. She’s taken the company on in a way that the Board is absolutely delighted with. As a result, she got a high multiplier and it was higher than some of the others and that will change every year depending on performance of individuals.
Everyone is well-performing, but obviously, some perform even slightly higher level than others and we try to reflect that with the multiplier, but that was the reason why there was a difference.
Nathan Burley:
We have another online question from Joe Alvario. Haven’t decisions that were made to discontinue landline phones that could be used when there was no power affected the safety of customers who now cannot use their landline phone during emergency when there is a power outage?
John Mullen:
Well, I mean I think that refers to the fact that when Telstra was the provider, the old phone system was powered independently. Whereas now under the NBN, there is no such plant it’s my understanding, therefore, in the event of power failure, you do lose that ability. But obviously, mobiles is where people now fall back on, but that was a decision of government, not of Telstra. That was the creation of the NBN that created that.
Nathan Burley:
John, I’ve been advised there are no questions on the phone, there’s no questions online and we have no further questions on the floor.
John Mullen:
Wonderful, so I think that closes us up. Yeah, okay, good. Thank you and shareholders, we have now finalised our discussion on items 4 and 5. Please again submit your votes online or complete your voting card for these items. Shareholders, that concludes the formal business of today’s annual general meeting. For those of you online, if you haven’t already done so, please submit your votes. For shareholders here in the room who are using a voting card, attendants are carrying ballot boxes throughout the room and ballot boxes are also located near the exits.
The poll will remain open for a further 10 minutes to enable shareholders to submit their votes and the results of the poll will be available later today and can be obtained by visiting the ASX or our website. Just before I finally close the meeting, just again, I would just refer there were a couple of specific shareholders who had issues with their services. Please don’t leave without speaking to one of us to get those addressed. We will take that on board now before you go.
I therefore now declare our 2023 Annual General Meeting closed subject to the finalisation of the poll on items 3 to 5. On behalf of the Board and management, thank you, shareholders for joining us today for my last AGM. It has been a pleasure and a real privilege to serve you and I wish everyone all the best for the future. Thank you.
The AGM of Telstra Corporation Limited was held on Tuesday 11 October 2022 in the Hilton Sydney Ballroom, Level 3, 488 George Street, Sydney NSW 2000 and online using the platform provided by our share registry, Link Market Services. The recording of the meeting is available below.
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Recording of the 2022 AGM held on Tuesday 11 October 2022 in the Hilton Sydney Ballroom, Level 3, 488 George Street, Sydney NSW 2000.
NIC MCKECHNIE:
Well, good morning shareholders. I'm Nic McKechnie. I am the communications Executive at Telstra and it's my pleasure to be your MC today. Before we start official proceedings, I'd like to welcome to the stage Aunty Norma Ingram.
AUNTY NORMA INGRAM:
(SPEAKS AN INDIGENOUS LANGUAGE) Morning, everyone, how are we? We have fun getting here this morning? It is my great pleasure and responsibility to welcome you to country this morning for your AGM. I want to acknowledge all of you for being here. I think you've got some buses or something here as well, I think. But it is a big responsibility for me. I am Aunty Norma Ingram. Aboriginal protocol is that Aboriginal elders are called aunty or uncle. So, I'm OK with Norma, Aunty Norma, just don't call me late for dinner. But I always love to do an Aboriginal welcome to country 'cause it is so important. I'm from mid western New South Wales, a town called Cowra, just past Bathurst. It's my mother's mother's traditional country and I could trace my ancestry back through her way back, before Captain Arthur Phillip came. My father is Riverina, but I have lived on Gadigal country, where we are today for many, many years and I am acknowledged and recognised and respected Aboriginal elder in this community.
So, I want to acknowledge that we're out of the traditional lands of the Gadigal people of the Eora nation. The Gadigal is one of 29 small clan groups that is Sydney area out to Redfern, Waterloo. The Gadigal, like all of our over 200 Aboriginal nations or language groups that we have right across this country, have cared for this country for over 60,000 years. So, I've got to tell you, my friends, 60,000 is really a Western concept. We always say we've been here since the Dreamtime and we'll continue to be here, and I'm so proud that I can say I belong to the longest continuous practice culture on the entire planet. So, go anywhere in Australia, you can see Aboriginal culture practised as it was practised 60,000 years ago. One of our major, I guess, aspects of Aboriginal culture is our kinship system. So, our kinship system is not just our human relatives, they are our fauna and flora, our animals and our plants. And so what we say is we have respect, responsibility and reciprocity. So, it is our responsibility as Aboriginal people and as Aboriginal elders to look after country, to look after our family, our animals, our plants, because what it means is that if we look after them, they can look after us.
And that's what Aboriginal welcome to country is all about, it's about acknowledging Mother Earth, it's about saying, Yes, Mother Earth. But it's far more than that, it's about acknowledging that 60,000 years of culture, it's about acknowledging the people who have taken care and continue to take care. And, you know, as Australians, you also have a part to play in that as well and it shouldn't be just up to Aboriginal people to care for country, this is our country. But we praise Mother Earth and we pay a responsibility to her through our songs, our dances, our stories. And if you look at the Gadigal, the Gadigal Sunrise people, they are salt water, their totem is the whale. And so all of those things are very important to us as Aboriginal people with our 200 Aboriginal nations right across this country. And we will continue to look after country, we will continue to pay respect. I want to acknowledge elders, most certainly Aboriginal elders right across our country, but elders who have gone before us, our elders are here with us now.
And I want to acknowledge elders from other nations and other countries. So important because they are the ones who have set the footprints, they are the ones who hold the history, who uphold the law and who guide us, if we just want to have a look and just pay attention to what they're doing. So, I just want to congratulate Telstra. I was looking at the videos and I thought, just we've come a long way since we set up the smoke signals, haven't we? I looked at that and I thought, Telstra is still able to work with our traditional owners, our Aboriginal people, our custodians, still able to work with them, looking at ancient knowledge, ancient cultures with modern day technology. And so I do look at that and I thank Telstra for making those connections because as I said, and I continue to say, our people continue to look after country and it's really great that Telstra could do that and work with our people so that we're not losing our land, so that we're not digging up our land without doing it the right way and the respectful way.
So, I just want to congratulate you on your AGM, your annual general meeting. I just do wanna say it's been a great pleasure. We have not, as Aboriginal people in this country, have not ceded our lands. We have never signed any treaty. So, it's great that we can work with people, with companies in this in this country. And so what I say, when you get the chance, take off those shoes and those socks, stand on Mother Earth, feel her power, whether it's sand or dirt or grass or whatever, stand there and you will feel the power. Talk to Mother Earth, tell her that you respect her, tell her that you will look after her and then she will look after you. So, as we always say, always was always is, always will be Aboriginal country. Let's think about that. And I want to thank you all and I want to welcome you to Aboriginal country, welcome you to Gadigal country and just continue to think about that and how we can pay respect to Mother Earth and really look after her. So, thank you everybody, welcome to country and enjoy your AGM and make some good decisions.
Thank you. (CLAPPING)
NIC MCKECHNIE:
Well, thank you so much, Auntie Norma. I, for one, will look forward to taking my shoes off afterwards and connecting with the earth. But it's so important that we do all listen and learn. And so that was a wonderful welcome to country and thank you very much. Well, welcome to everyone in the room today. It's great to see so many shareholders here today after not being able to meet in person for the last few years. Welcome also to everyone joining us online here today from wherever you may be. Today is a special day for us, as we have not one but two shareholder meetings. This is the first one, our annual general meeting. Once we've finished our AGM after a short break, we'll hold the second meeting, which is the scheme meeting for our proposed corporate restructuring. We'll be serving a light lunch at around midday today. However, if the AGM has not finished by that time, we will not be adjourning for lunch. And this is our first ever hybrid AGM with shareholders joining us in person, online and by phone.
So, it's going to run a little differently to previous meetings. For those of you here in the room, you're here today, you'll have been given a card when you registered this morning. Yellow cards are for shareholders who may speak and vote. Blue cards are for shareholders who may speak but not vote. You will need your card to ask a question or to re-enter the meeting and you can see those details from the slide up behind me. If you have any queries about how to vote, please speak with one of our staff in the room, he'll be very happy to help you or in the shareholder registration area outside and I'll also be happy to assist you. The procedure on how to ask a question in the room is being shown on the screen. For shareholders joining us online, on your screen, you'll see our virtual meetings guide. This contains all of the information you'll need about how to vote and ask questions. You can also call the help number that's shown on your screen if you're having any difficulties. And in terms of how we'll manage shareholder questions today, for each question session, we'll deal with questions from the floor here first, then we'll move to online questions, followed by phone questions.
I'll be reading the online questions to the chairman as they have been written by the shareholders. If we can't answer your questions fully or we can't get through all of the questions today, we'll certainly respond to any unanswered questions after the meeting, either directly or through the answers to common questions, which we will put up on our AGM website. If you have an individual customer or shareholder issue, please speak with one of our customer service staff here today, who again will be very happy to assist you. For shareholders submitting questions online, one of our customer service or share registry staff will be in touch with you after the meeting. For shareholders joining us online, the online platform is now open, and I would encourage you to submit any questions that you have now. So, with all of those procedural matters out of the way. I'd like to hand over to your chairman, John Mullen.
JOHN MULLEN:
Great. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. My name is John, John Mullen. And it's my great pleasure to welcome you this morning to our 2022 annual General meeting. Thanks very much to everyone for joining us and for your continued support and investment in Telstra. Can I also start by saying how delighted I am to be back speaking to a roomful of real people and shareholders once again. But as Nic said, this of course is a hybrid meeting. So, a very warm welcome to the many shareholders who have chosen to join us online. A quorum is present, and therefore, it's my pleasure to formally declare today's meeting open. A notice of meeting was distributed earlier, setting out the business and resolutions to be considered today. And I propose to take that notice as read. A number of items of business on today's agenda, and all of them are now being shown on the screen. Voting on items three to five will be conducted by poll, and that poll is now open. Instructions on how to participate in the poll were distributed earlier, but assistance is available at any time should you need it.
It's important to also point out that following the AGM after a short break, we will reconvene for a separate scheme meeting. The scheme meeting is to seek shareholder approval on the scheme of arrangement, the next step in our proposed corporate restructure. The restructure was a key component of our T22 strategy and is now a key part of our new T25 strategy that was announced last year. As we'll discuss at this key meeting itself, the restructure is an important next step in our drive to increase the transparency of our infrastructure assets and to improve management focus on our infrastructure and customer businesses and consequently, provide us with more flexibility to create additional value for you, our shareholders. Now, I'm very pleased to be joined on stage today by all of my fellow board members, company Secretary, Sue Laver and our CFO, Michael Eklund, current directors Craig Dunn and Eelco Bloc, also both standing for re-election today and you'll hear from each bean shortly.
Sarah Lowe from auditors Ernst and Young is also here today. And I'm sure that she'll be very happy to answer any questions that you may have on the conduct of the audit or on the auditor's report itself. Our senior management team is also present and in many ways, today marks the end of one era for the company and the beginning of another. Shortly, you'll hear from your new CEO, Vicki Brady, whose appointment followed the decision earlier this year by Andy Penn to retire after more than seven years in the role. Vicki is a highly capable and professional executive, and she could scarcely be better qualified to lead Telstra into this new era. Vicki was previously Telstra's chief financial officer as well as before that, managing our largest business segment being consumer and small business. As a result, she knows our company inside out and she's made an enormous contribution to the company already, including through her work in helping develop our new go-to-market plans as part of the T22 strategy.
Vicki also played a key leadership role in the development of the T25 strategy, which is going to be absolutely critical to the success of the company going forward. And I and the board believe that she is therefore the ideal person to lead Telstra into its next phase of growth. Then let me now also take the opportunity to offer a special vote of thanks to Andy Penn for his incredible contribution to Telstra. Andy led the company during a period of significant change and he will be remembered for his courage and setting a bold ambition through T22 to deliver a transformed experience for customers, shareholders and employees. And there is no doubt that T22 has delivered beyond expectations. It's also laid the foundations for the T25 strategy and our renewed focus on growth and innovation. In recent years, Andy not only ensured the successful delivery of our T22 commitments, but also provided outstanding leadership during what has truly been an extraordinary time as we have navigated, both as a company and a nation, through the challenges of the pandemic.
Andy also built a very strong leadership team and perhaps the greatest testament to this was our ability to announce internal successors to the roles of both CEO and CFO. And we were thrilled, therefore, to announce Vicki and Michael in these roles earlier this year. Now, without Andy's exemplary leadership, I think it's safe to say Telstra simply would not be in the strong position that it is today. So, on behalf of the board and shareholders, I'd formally like to thank Andy for the extraordinary contribution he made to Telstra and to congratulate Vicki on her new appointment. Right. And let me now turn (COUGHS) Excuse me to the company's recent performance, and in particular, the successful completion this year of our T22 strategy. I think it's fair to say that four years ago when we launched T22, Telstra was in a very difficult position. We've seen the rate of digital adoption accelerate rapidly, along with customer expectations for a seamless digital experience. We knew that we had to respond boldly to the enormous impact that the creation of the NBN would have on Telstra.
And we knew that we had to radically simplify and digitise Telstra and once and for all try to remove the customer pain points that has frustrated our customers and our teams for too long. Now, we knew all of this when we launched T22 in 2018 and embarked on what has been one of the largest and most ambitious transformations of the telco globally. The strategy leverages many of the significant capabilities that we had already built through the strategic investment of $3 billion to create the networks for the future and to digitise the business. And this year I'm delighted to report the past four years of discipline, focus and hard work have really paid off, and the underlying business of your company grew again in fiscal year 22, and we are now positioned for continued growth. Our investments in innovation and technology and digitisation and networks, in improving our customer experiences and ways of working, and our disciplined approach to capital management mean that Telstra today is a fundamentally different company with an incredibly bright future.
Vicki will take you through the financial highlights shortly, but I wanted to touch on just some of the key achievements made under T22. That we have famously reduced the number of in-market products and services for our consumer customers from 1,800 to just 20 and stripped away the lock in contracts, excess data and the other charges that used to frustrate our customers. Our 5G network now is the largest and fastest in the country, covering 80% of the population, and it's among the very best globally. Our total network now cover some 99.5% of all Australians and stands at over 2.6 million square kilometres. We have completely modernised and digitised our systems. Our direct headcount has been reduced by approximately 8,000, but simultaneously we have recruited 1,500 new hires in software engineering, data analytics, artificial intelligence, and cyber security. Our cyber security capabilities are now considerable and our teams are working around the clock to protect our networks and our customers from unprecedented levels of malicious activity.
In the last 12 months alone, we have blocked more than 1 billion malicious emails, 200 million scam calls and we're currently blocking 1,500 scam texts every minute of every day. Do you know how many still get through? So, should I just say the magnitude of the problem we're facing. Another significant change has been to bring our consumer and small business contact centres back onshore. I've been a member of the Telstra board for 14 years now and chairman for the past six and I don't think there's been a single AGM where we have not faced questions from shareholders about offshore contact centres. Well, I'm delighted to say that those days are over. Over the past months we have had around 2,000 new team members across the country so we can answer consumer and small business calls in Australia and create a better customer experience. Our commitment to hybrid working also means that those new team members are located in cities and towns across Australia, including regional hubs like Maryborough, Bunbury and Bathurst.
Thanks to hybrid working, that means that the person helping you could be in your state, your suburb, your town, or who knows? Even your street. And on any given day, nine out of 10 of our consumer and small business service team choose to work from home. Another significant change this year concerned our licensee stores, which have all been brought back in-house and are now Telstra owned and operated. Almost half of all sales interactions and more than three quarters of all service interactions with consumer and small business customers are now digital. And the benefits of a better system are tangible and the number of calls now coming into Telstra's consumer and small business contact centres has fallen by more than 70%. These improvements are also reflected in our episode Net Promoter Score results, which are stronger than ever, improving five points in the last 12 months and 18 points since the T22 program began. Fiscal year 22 was also a pivotal year for Telstra financially, as we saw the near-final negative transitional effects of the NBN rollout in our reported results and the growing momentum in our underlying performance.
Vicki will talk to you more about FY22 results in a minute, but it was especially pleasing to be able to increase the total dividend for the first time in quite a few years. The increase recognised the confidence of the board following the success of our T22 strategy and the ambition in our T25 strategy of high teens earnings per share growth from fiscal year 21 to fiscal year 25. Inside the business, the adoption of agile at scale work practices has transformed our approach to prioritisation and resource allocation so that we are faster to market, more efficient and more customer-focused. We also continued to look for opportunities to grow our business and to unlock value from our infrastructure assets. Last year, we finalised a significant transaction with a consortium made up of the Future Fund, Commonwealth Superannuation Corporation and Sunsuper to sell a non-controlling 49% interest in our InfraCo Towers business for $2.8 billion. Importantly, we retain 51% ownership of the towers business now called Amplitel and retain full ownership of the active parts of our network, ensuring that we can continue to maintain our network leadership.
And approximately 50% or $1.35 billion of the net proceeds of this deal would indirectly return to shareholders during fiscal year 22 via an on-market share buy-back. We also invested $75 million of the proceeds to further enhance connectivity in regional areas. The remainder of the proceeds were used for debt reduction to ensure that we maintain balance sheet strength and flexibility. In October last year, we announced the acquisition and partnership with the Australian Government of Digicel Pacific, adding a leading mobile business in PNG, Fiji, Vanuatu, Tonga, Nauru and Samoa with 2.8 million customers to our international business. We completed this acquisition in July of this year. Our intercity fibre project, announced in February, will provide ultrafast connectivity between capital cities and improved regional connectivity. We have finalised contract negotiations for the first stages of the build, and we have held detailed discussions with customers, including signing up Microsoft as a major anchor tenant.
In satellites, Telstra will build and manage the ground infrastructure and fibre network in Australia for Viasat's new series three satellite system and construct a major fibre project to build state-of-the-art inter-city dual fibre paths across the country. We also announced an MOU, a memorandum of understanding with the LEOSat provider OneWeb and are working towards building a commercial relationship with testing of their network underway as well. Telstra Health was selected to deliver the 1800RESPECT for service for an initial five years at an estimated value of around $200 million, adding to the strategic health software of the company, acquisitions in GP practice management and specialist billing and clinical coding. Through all of this activity, we continue to build on our work to be a leading, responsible business. And we know that businesses can only be successful in delivering sustained value for their shareholders if their customers, employees and communities are also successful.
Our commitment takes many forms, that includes significant action on climate change, where we are certified by the Australian Government's climate active program as carbon neutral in 2020 and continue progressing towards the other two climate targets to enable renewable energy generation equivalent to 100% of our consumption by 2025, and reducing absolute emissions by at least 50% by 2030. At the same time, too many Australians, and particularly vulnerable Australians in difficult circumstances are at risk of being left behind in the digital age and becoming even more marginalised. Telstra has a key role to play here, building access through our network investment, ensuring our products and services are affordable, and by supporting a range of programs to build digital skills. We're also providing more network coverage to more people in remote and regional areas. And over the seven years to the end of fiscal year 22, Telstra will have invested $11 billion in our mobile network nationally, with 4 billion of this invested in our regional mobile network, providing additional capacity and new and improved coverage.
Last year, we also announced significant forward investments, including $150 million in regional investment for fiscal year 22 and an additional 200 million co-investment fund to improve regional connectivity over the next four years. This work continues to shape Telstra as a responsible, sustainable and community-minded organisation, one that is purpose-led and values-driven. And we're very proud of this work. Looking ahead, the company has now moved from T22 to T25. Y25 marks a really exciting new era again in Telstra's history, one that will see us accelerate growth from our core, as well as continuing to scale a successful health and international businesses. We will build on the simpler world that we have created for customers. We will provide an exceptional experience with even greater personalisation and consistency across our channels. We will offer the products and services they need to connect as individuals and businesses grow. We will take advantage of the many great strides made in our 5G rollout and boost capacity, speed and population coverage of our mobile network.
We will expand our regional network by an extra 100,000 square kilometres so we can continue to deliver leading mobile coverage and build and sustain our network leadership. We will continue to improve our reputation as a responsible business with further action on climate, digital inclusion and building fairness and accessibility into all that we will do. We were successful with T22 because we were bold. We set ourselves some big, ambitious goals and executed with discipline and transparency. The same disciplined approach will be taken with T25. Turning now then to changes this year on Telstra's board. One long serving board member, Nora Scheinkestel, reached the end of her four three-year term as director and has notified the board of her intention to retire at the conclusion of today's scheme meeting. Nora has simply been an outstanding director, and I'm very, very sorry to see her retire. She was one of the very best directors that I've ever had the pleasure to work with. She has been part of the board at a time when Telstra has gone through some of its greatest challenges and transformations, this includes her chairmanship of the Audit and Risk Committee from 2012 to 2019, and her membership of the Due diligence committees, which helped guide Telstra through the NBN transaction as well as our current proposed corporate restructure.
So, on behalf of the board, I would like to express my sincere thanks to Nora and offer her our very best wishes for the future. (CLAPPING) More broadly, Telstra has a strong and talented board and we continue to bring on outstanding individuals to replace those that retire. In that regard, we expect to announce two high quality new directors in the next few months. Now, a number of investors have also asked me recently about my own future as chair. So, I've been on the board for 14 years, so it's only natural for there to be a speculation on my tenure, especially as we now have Vicki in place as our new CEO. So, well, my current term with the board ends in October next year, but I have two significant obligations still ahead of me. Firstly, I need to do everything I can to support Vicki in her new role, and secondly, I need to ensure that in addition to the capable directors already on the board, the board is strengthened by the addition of new directors so that my colleagues have a strong line up of candidates from which to choose when deciding on my successor.
If both of those tasks are completed by next year's AGM, then I will not be standing for re-election. If we're unable to complete all of this in that time, then provided my colleagues support the decision, I would stand for re-election, but with the intention of transitioning to a new chairman within the first six to 12 months of my next term. Now, of course, Telstra doesn't exist in a vacuum, and just as we have transformed over the past four years, so too has the world around us. Technology innovation continues to accelerate. COVID has turbo-charged the digitalisation of our society and further underscored the crucial importance of the connectivity that we provide. Geopolitics remains volatile and uncertain, and that has changed the threat landscape and increase the demands on our cyber defences and strategic supply chains. Now, Vicki will touch further on cyber security in a minute, but may I just say that it is easy for third parties to be critical of companies who have suffered devastating cyber attacks, such as happened recently to Optus.
Let me be blunt, however, and say that it's very easy to be critical when it isn't you in the firing line and we should all avoid hubris because no-one can afford to be complacent and no organisation can ever be 100% sure that it is completely protected and safe. The threat sophistication of the attackers grows every day. And to address the threat, business needs to put aside competitive rivalry and work constructively across industries, with government and with the community to protect Australia from this modern scourge. Then at the same time, everyone's aware that inflation and cost of living pressures continue to increase and this is also something that we are incredibly mindful of. The changes we've made under T22 position as well in this regard. Most consumer and small business customers now have incredible flexibility with us. Their mobile Internet service plans are no longer on a long term contract. They can move between plans even once a month if their circumstances change. They can also take advantage of a multi-brand strategy and a range of propositions that give them real choice.
Equally, we continue to work closely with customers who find themselves in difficult situations, and particularly working with people in vulnerable circumstances. In this regard, through various initiatives we today helped some 750,000 vulnerable customers to be able to maintain connectivity and participate in our modern digital world. There's no easy or short term fix, but we remain very sensitive to cost of living pressures and the pressures of that creates for customers and employees. Lastly, another issue of some concern is the current critical shortage of skilled labour in the technology sector, an issue that clearly impacts on Telstra. The new Federal Government deserves real credit for its genuine efforts to address this and other critical issues in a considered, consultative and collaborative way at its recent Jobs and Skills Summit. The debate on how to address skills shortages has some way to run yet, but most people agree on one important point, skilled migration is an important part of the solution, and the system that enables it must be made simpler, more efficient and transparent.
Historically, migrants have supplied about a third of the increased skill requirements of the Australian economy and given Australia's ageing population, we should expect this trend to accelerate in the future. With the world rapidly digitising and with many companies, including Telstra, requiring ever more technically skilled workers, this is an area we cannot afford to fall behind. For Australia to be competitive, we must invest in skills and training, particularly in growing industries like technology, but we also need ready and steady access to skilled labour from offshore, as required. So, let me conclude again by saying we have many achievements to be proud of this year. The many tangible benefits of T22 are now clear and they underpin our commitment to return the business to underlying growth and position it for success in the future through T25. It's an exciting strategy to meet an exciting future. And finally, before I invite Vicki to address you, let me sincerely thank you, our shareholders, for your support during the year.
Let me also thank our millions of customers because without them there would be no Telstra. And finally, a really sincere thank you to every Telstra staff member, the board greatly appreciates all that you do. And I believe so too do our shareholders. Thank you very much for listening. And let me now introduce our new chief executive officer, Vicki Brady, and invite her to address the meeting. Thank you. (CLAPPING)
VICKI BRADY:
Well, thank you, Chairman. And good morning, everybody. I am delighted to be here for the first time as your chief executive Officer, and I look forward to hearing your comments and answering any questions you have of me. This morning I will cover two things. Firstly, I will comment on the financial and operating results from FY22 and an overview of our priorities and guidance for FY23. Secondly, I will provide some detail on the growth aspirations of our new T25 strategy. Before I do that, given it is my first time here as CEO, I wanted to briefly touch on what my immediate key focus areas are and some of the drivers behind them. FY22 was a particularly important year for Telstra. As the chairman just took you through, we successfully closed out our T22 strategy and the financial headwinds from the transition to the NBN are largely behind us. At the same time, the world is going through a period of upheaval, with changes in the geopolitical landscape, supply chain disruptions and economic pressures such as inflation coming on top of the growing impacts of climate change.
These things are driving different opportunities and challenges for all businesses, and to prosper in this environment, we will need to think differently and boldly. One thing I am sure of, and as COVID has demonstrated, connectivity and technology, Telstra's core products and expertise, will play a key role in helping our country and the world to respond to these challenges. Put simply, what we do and deliver has never been more important. Which brings me to my key priorities, which are strongly grounded in our T25 strategy and ambitions. Number one, we must continue to radically change the experience for our customers. We have made huge progress through T22, but delivering exceptional customer experiences, being known as a leader in customer excellence isn't just the right thing to do, it is critical to us unlocking future opportunities, opportunities to fuel our growth. And that growth is my second priority. Growth will come from customers trusting us to play a lead role in delivering the technology that can make a real difference for them and their organisations.
Connectivity is at the heart of so much of our lives, and Telstra is in an extraordinary position with the team that can bring together our market leading networks, products, services, and solutions for consumers and enterprises. That demand for our products and services, with connectivity playing a foundational role in everything we do, means we are well-placed to grow into the future. The increased reliance on connectivity we provide means we need to be vigilant in protecting our networks and platforms. We are seeing increasing cyber threats, and the recent attack on one of our competitors puts into stark focus just how real these threats are. You may have also seen reports of a data breach at one of our third-party suppliers. I want to be clear that this was not a breach of any Telstra system and did not involve any customer data. The hackers accessed the names and email addresses of some of our employees. We have taken important steps to protect our networks and customers, but ongoing vigilance is required and the job is never done.
We are also blocking unprecedented levels of malicious activity from reaching our customers, including calls and SMS, while at the same time helping our customers to protect themselves and their businesses. With a growing number of these cyber attacks, some of our customers are asking us what ID documents we keep, for how long, and for what reason. These are all fair questions and people are right to be asking them. Like many companies, we are subject to multiple pieces of legislation and rules in relation to retaining our customers ID data. We collect it and fiercely protect it through our cybersecurity capabilities. But we agree the time is right for a discussion on the laws around keeping data. As we do, we have to get the balance right, and it's a fine balance between identifying our customers, protecting them against fraud, maintaining their privacy, and helping law enforcement combat crime. Given advances in technology and the broader work being done on trusted digital identity, I think that balance is achievable and we really look forward to working with the government on it.
I will now turn to the financial results. FY22 was a pivotal year for us. As well as successfully marking the end of our T22 program, we also saw the last financial effects of the rollout of the nbn and the growing momentum in our underlying performance is showing through. Those final financial nbn impacts saw reported total income's decline of around 700 million in one-off nbn receipts, and 300 million in nbn commercial works. Total income for the year therefore decreased 4.7% to 22 billion on a reported basis, while NPAT decreased 4.6% to 1.8 billion, and earnings per share were down 7.7% to 14.4 cents per share on a reported basis. The declines reflect both the impact of the nbn and one-off gains from asset sales last year. In contrast, underlying EBITDA on a guidance basis, increased 8.4% to 7.3 billion, driven significantly by an outstanding performance in the year from our mobile's business. Underlying EBITDA included an in-year nbn headwind of 340 million. This is the last year of in-year nbn headwinds and brings the total cumulative impact of nbn on Telstra's EBITDA to 3.6 billion per annum.
Encouragingly, underlying EPS was up 48.5% to 14.4 cents per share, and as the chairman just highlighted, we are pleased to announce an increase in the total dividend for the first time in a number of years. I will now turn to the operating highlights for the year. As I said, mobiles performed very strongly, adding 700 million in EBITDA growth. We added 155,000 net retail postpaid mobile services, including 121,000 branded, demonstrating the benefits of our clear leadership in 5G. Retail prepaid unique users were up 215,000. In wholesale we added 218,000 services, and we added over 1 million Internet of Things services. Our performance in fixed for consumer and small business has been more challenged. Net new retail bundles were -87,000, although bundle and standalone data ARPU increased by 2.4%. Not withstanding the disappointing fixed IO performance, we are confident of restoring financial momentum by leveraging the many value adding home broadband features Telstra offers. In Enterprise and in line with our previously communicated aspiration, we return to growth at both the income and EBITDA level.
Fixed Enterprise EBITDA grew by 2.3%, with NAS EBITDA growing by 152 million to offset weakness in our data and connectivity business. InfraCo Fixed income was 2.4 billion, with core access revenues, including nbn recurring receipts, up 3.1%. InfraCo Fixed growth will be further supported by our inter-city fibre project announced in February. This will provide ultra-fast connectivity between capital cities and improved regional connectivity. Telstra Health had a strong year both operationally and strategically as it continues to scale. Telstra Health revenue for the year was up 13%, or 51% to 243 million after including the Medical Director And Power Health acquisitions. Finally, on our operating highlights, underlying fixed costs were down 454 million and total operating expenses were down 906 million or 5.8%. In summary, FY22 has seen our core business perform strongly. Our mobiles result was outstanding, Consumer and Small Business Fixed grew in the second half, Enterprise returned to growth at the top line and bottom line, and we've started to realize the benefits of setting up our infrastructure assets as standalone InfraCo businesses.
Turning now to FY23 guidance, which I am confirming today. The ranges and basis on which guidance is provided can be seen on the slide. Guidance across all measures includes our Digicel Pacific acquisition that completed in July. Our Underlying EBITDA guidance is consistent with our previous FY23 ambition, plus a contribution from Digicel Pacific. Our CapEx guidance includes an uplift in mobile investment, around 150 million for Digicel Pacific, and around 350 million of strategic investment, outside of business as usual, for the Intercity Fibre and Viasat infrastructure projects. Finally, on guidance, we expect to continue to as achieve strong cash flow, enabling us to invest for growth and deliver returns to shareholders. FY23 free cash flow is expected to be around 1.1 billion, lower at the midpoint of guidance than FY22. Increased EBITDA in FY23 contributes positively, but this is more than offset by increased CapEx as well as working capital and other benefits in FY22 not repeating.
With that, let me turn back to T25 and the future. T25 is built on four strategic pillars and aims to deliver, first, an exceptional customer experience you can count on. As I said at the start, nothing is more important than continuing to improve customer experience, and this sits at the heart of our T25 strategy, leveraging the capabilities we have built. Second, leading network and technology solutions that deliver your future. Connectivity is central to how the world works and our customers are demanding more from us than ever before. We are committed to continuing to provide them leading network and technology solutions. Third, sustained growth and value for you, our shareholders. Our financial ambitions are clear. We aim to grow our underlying business through to FY25, demonstrated by the key metrics of EBITDA, ROIC and earnings per share. With cash flow generation and opportunities ahead to monetize assets, although we have made no decisions yet in this regard, we will focus on maximizing our fully-franked dividend and seeking to grow it over time.
And finally, the place you want to work. The last one is built on three key areas, excelling in new ways of working, accelerating our digital leadership, and doing business responsibly. As the chairman said, we will take the same transparent and disciplined approach to T25 as we did to T22. That means we will continue to publish a scorecard that clearly shows our progress against our commitments and metrics. Today, you heard the chairman call out some of our early progress in his speech, including our intercity-fibre build and our support of the Viasat satellite ground network. In conclusion, FY22 clearly shows the financial momentum within our business, and we expect that momentum to continue through growth in our underlying business. While the current economic and global environment remain volatile, we are well placed to manage through it with earnings growth, strong cash generation, and a strong balance sheet. Demand for our products and services has never been stronger. We have a clear strategy to grow our business, deliver industry-leading networks and technology, continue to improve our customer experience, and attract and retain the best talent.
I echo the thanks of the chairman to you, our shareholders, and I am equally humbled and proud to be given the job of leading this iconic company. I would also like to thank the board for the faith they have put in me. And I want you to know I feel the weight of that responsibility that comes with it. As we have laid out today, Telstra plays a critical role in providing the networks, connectivity, and technology that connects our nation. I am energized by that responsibility and confident we have the strategy and the team in place to fulfill it. Lastly, I want to take the time to thank the entire Telstra team. I am supported by a group of extraordinary, values-driven people working together to deliver an exceptional customer experience to fully realize the value of our unequal assets and ultimately to deliver better returns for you. Thank you. And with that, I will now hand back to the chairman. (APPLAUSE)
JOHN MULLEN:
Great. Thanks a lot Vicki. So we will now move to the formal part of the meeting. And the items of business are being shown on the screen. Nic outlined at the start of the meeting how you can ask a question and vote. Just a reminder, if you have any difficulty with the online platform or the phone system, please check our Virtual Meetings Guide on our website or call the help number shown at the top of your screen. As I mentioned earlier, voting on items three to five is being conducted by poll. Ms. Emma Jones of Linked Market Services Limited, Telstra's Share Registrar, is acting as returning officer in relation to the pol. We have received proxies from over 15,000 shareholders and direct votes from almost 14,000 shareholders. And we will display the proxy and direct votes recorded for, and against, an item on the screen when we get to that item. The 'for' numbers include proxies received and available to be voted by the chairman of the meeting. So, I now turn to item two on today's agenda, which is to discuss the company's financial statements and reports for the year ended 30 June, 2022.
So, this item provides shareholders with the opportunity to ask questions about our 2022 financial statements and reports, as well as the business operations and management of Telstra. You can also ask questions of our auditor. Now, if you have any specific questions about the scheme, could you please hold onto those and ask them at the scheme meeting, which will be held later today, after the AGM. So I'll now take questions from the floor. Shareholders, I invite you to move to a microphone and ask any questions about our 2022 results or any general questions you have about our company. For those of you not here in person, please submit your questions through the online portal or raise your hand on the phone line if you haven't already done so. I have four microphones here. So, please, any questions for us? We have a question from number four?
NICOLE MCKECHNIE:
Chairman, I would like to introduce Mr. Bernard Power.
BERNARD POWER:
A general question, Mr. Chairman. You mentioned earlier that you were having difficulty recruiting the best technical talent, but I do notice on the CVs of both the board and the senior management, those are people mainly from a financial or commercial background. Do you not feel perhaps that Telstra should have a bigger technical representation in this forum? Thank you.
JOHN MULLEN:
Well, thank you for the question. I think the days of having a technical director on the board are over. Every director on the board needs to have an understanding of technology. They don't have to be a deep specialist, but you need to have a good understanding of technology and how it impacts our world. And I believe that we really do have that. And in particular, we have three directors. We've had the highest levels of experience as CEO or boardroom level of major telcos larger than Telstra. So I think we've actually got an excellent level of technological capability on the board. Thank you for the question. Number three.
NICOLE MCKECHNIE:
Chairman, I'd like to introduce Penelope Fisher.
PENELOPE FISHER:
My name is Penelope Fisher. I'm a shareholder in Telstra from the original fruit, and I'm also a Telstra customer. And I cannot tell you how extraordinarily disappointed I am in the performance of Telstra to me as a customer. I have actually had nothing but problems since I converted to the nbn in January 2022. I have taken this up both with Telstra as case managers have been appointed to me and rotated, and changed to the degree, do I just feel like pass the parcel. I've taken it to my local member for Wentworth, Dave Sharma, who's now no longer my local member, and I've also taken it to TIO, over and over and over again. Due to a car accident, I'm a Priority Assist customer, and yet I have had an ongoing fault issue with both my home line and my internet, which is not covered by Priority Assist, but home line is, since March of this year. I had somebody who was appointed to me, Mr. Charlie Wilson as my case manager, who has now left Telstra, and somebody called Jade Smith has taken over.
She has not contacted me on my phone in the past two months. She says she has, but she hasn't gotten through to me. She's never written a letter to me to tell me how to contact her, she's constantly sent me only two emails. And when I've actually said to her, "Why have the agreements or the offer as a contractual offer that was made by Charlie Wilson, not been honoured by Telstra once I've agreed to them?" she has not been able to get back to me and tell me why. I cannot tell you how aggrieved I am, not just for myself, but for those other people who are in vulnerable positions for whatever reason. Mine is due to a car accident, bilateral hip replacement, damage to my spine, lucky to walk away. But there are other people older than me who don't have the linguistic skills or education I do, who are actually in a position that Telstra has placed them in, by not honouring their word and not fixing the problem. If the nbn is not delivering, I can't sue them, I have a third-party relationship with them, but Telstra can.
That the nbn network is not working all over Australia. There's problems with the nbn network that many, many people recognize. Apparently, the ACCC have complained to the government about the current legislation, especially for Priority Assist, and also the current Ombudsman for the TIO have also complained that the legislation needs changing. But it's not just the legislation that needs changing, it's Telstra's working relationship with the nbn that needs changing, because the nbn network has regular outages, both planned and unplanned, which leave people without any way of connecting. I have not had mobile signals in, or in the area around my home, since 2012. So if I lose my home line and my internet, but it's not covered by Priority Assist, only the home line, I have no way of getting the assistance I might need. I think this is extremely poor performance as a company, and I would like to know what kind of measures you are going to be taking to address it? And I agree with the person who asked the question before, I'm surprised that there's not more technical expertise on the board, but more financially-heavy expertise on the board.
Of course, the company must survive as a company, but it has to have something to sell that is a technical and sophisticated product to its customers. So I'd like to know what you intend to do about fixing the nbn network problem as well as how you intend to assist customers who are Priority Assist customers? I can't work from home, I can't start a business from home, and I can't study from home because of these issues. Thank you.
JOHN MULLEN:
Well, firstly, nobody likes hearing the difficulties that you've experienced and I unreservedly apologize on behalf of the company for the troubles you've experienced. Now, there's a lot in your question. Let me try and get some of the bits. Firstly, you'll forgive me, in your particular circumstances, obviously I don't have the knowledge at my fingertips, but we have people here who will be able to help you. And let's make sure before you leave today, you sit down with an appropriate person from Vicki's team and we will get your issues resolved. So that's point one. Point two, I think, yes, you're right, there have been quite a few difficulties experienced by the whole industry with the transition to the nbn, that's no secret. However, we have a very good working relationship with the nbn, after perhaps some difficult times at the beginning as everyone's finding their feet. The rollout is pretty well complete now, and I can assure you nbn is trying really hard to fix those issues in conjunction with us.
Sometimes it's a Telstra problem, sometimes it's an nbn problem, but we do work constructively together to try to address those. I know it's of small comfort to you, with the experiences you've had, but actually the transformation of Telstra's customer experience has been absolutely radical. A long, long way to go, and when you've got millions and millions of customers, there will always be someone who has a bad experience from time to time. But I think you heard some of the statistics that we mentioned earlier, that the number of calls coming in are reduced by 70%. We brought 166 of the stores in-house, where they can be directly managed by Telstra Management. We brought a hundred percent of the Consumers and Small Business service calls that were handled overseas, brought them back on. Our net promoter score has climbed dramatically up to, I think, plus 37 at the end of the T2022. We've done other things as well, like with the free calls from phone boxes. I believe some 17 million customers have done some 17 million free calls.
We're extending that to fixed line opportunities as well. We've helped some three-quarters of a million vulnerable customers. So while, yes, I don't, in any way, downplay the difficulties you've had, believe me that the transformation of Telstra service performance has been dramatic. And T25, probably the single biggest component, and Vicki and I have discussed this at length, single biggest focus is to take that service performance up another level. Now, there'll always be somebody who has an experience from time to time, that's life, but we really want to get it to the point where Telstra's recognized as a seamless digital and first-class customer service organization. We've still got a way to go, but we've made a lot of progress. And I would just circle back. Please don't leave today, until you sat with one of us. I'm happy to talk to you with Vicki and some of our team, and we will address your issue and get it resolved. Thank you. Number three.
NICOLE MCKECHNIE:
Chairman, I'd just like to introduce Margaret (UNKNOWN).
MARGARET:
I'm not used to doing this, but I would like to speak to somebody on the board. I have had problems with my legs from here down. I have to walk every day, but I've had problems with my legs in the last few weeks, through the stress of not resolving the Telstra nbn problems. Everyone has been extremely nice to me, except for somebody about two or three weeks ago, when I went into the Telstra place at Chatswood, at Westfield, where they happened to know me, because I've been in there so many times. With all these scams, I know people who have been scammed and I didn't know sometimes, still don't know always, if it's Telstra ringing me. So I make a journey into Westfield, and I was on the phone for an hour and not understanding the technology that the girl was using. And I never will understand it, and especially when my head is all fuzz. Now, I think it's since, and I lost the use... I don't know if I was going to faint or whatever. But since then, I've had the stress. My brother died on the 21 July, I've lost three other friends since then, going back for years.
But I think it's about two weeks into July that I first had a problem with the screeching so badly on the phone, and a friend in hospital leaving the longest message she's ever left, and I could not understand any word in that message on the answering machine. The phone, I have been told, has dropped out as many as 50 times, even when I'm not even talking on the phone. It's still dropping out 50 times, 20 times, 30, 17. I do believe that it was fixed last week by one fellow Con, C-O-N, Con. Greek background, lovely fellow, who started supervising the other technicians that came out. And a new line should have been put in when we had problems with Telstra before. Where I live, in that area, we had problems with Telstra for years. The technicians had come out. There'd be water in the little black boxes in the pits. What do you call it? Condensation. My mind is not even working properly. I have made a very bad investment. I went into the bank to invest in a term deposit so much, and it was suggested double the amount, because I had too much standing.
I had intended that money to go somewhere else. Now, I can't think clearly. That's how stressed I have been. I have missed out on meals. My weight went down to under seven stone. I should be eight stone, two or four. Now, it's not funny to have... And about two or three weeks ago, my head, I can't explain it, felt if I didn't just pull back and just... And I have been nice to everybody. I ended up in the last two or three weeks telling the people that I'm frustrated. That's the strongest word I've used. Yesterday, the Priority Assist fellow, I've had Priority Assist for a long time. I walk very quickly, my movement's are very quick and everybody thinks I'm very fit. I'm not. But I do what I'm told to do by the physio every day and I go for a walk every day. And that keeps me going. I'm sorry to take up so much time, but I'm not as articulate as that lady. And Vicki, you are very articulate. Thank you for explaining things so clearly this morning. I would like to speak to somebody. But Con, who took responsibility, the line has gone from that box, up to that box, to there, up to there, and up to my garage.
Now, it goes down through between the two brick walls, and the line by nbn has been completed, but the phone is still not right. And the fellow yesterday said, "Just stay calm." Well, it's very hard and I didn't raise my voice, but I didn't even think that was the right word. I think that Telstra could... And as I said, everyone's been extremely polite in what they say. They think that it's fixed, but if it's not, the line needs to be replaced. Well, now that was done last Saturday. And it was done very quickly and efficiently, I believe. And this Con had a wonderful way of keeping me calm, keeping me confident. That's lacking when nobody takes responsibility for anything. And when the technician is leaving, he says, "I think the line has been fixed. But if it's not, you need to replace the complete line." Well, this is costing Telstra. For that lady, for me, we're not the only ones. I have so many friends who have a connection in their house, but they don't use it. They're obviously paying the bill, which may be something, but they don't use their phone.
And the other thing, yeah, they gave up trying to get in once they switched over to nbn, they just gave up. But the mobile in my area, that also doesn't work very efficiently in my house and I took it out onto the street. I don't normally use the mobile. I'm not good with the technology. Went out there, it cut out five times. I thought it was me. But no, apparently, selling off these towers is not a good idea because Telstra are not allowed onto the properties. The one tower has been out of operation for nine months. This was mentioned to me about three, four weeks ago, nine months. And another one has been out of operations since, at some stage, for two months, the mobile in my area. And it's something to do with... Oh, what do you call it? See, I can't think at all. But please, I realized the whole of the country, there are problems in every area because it's all grown too quickly. Everything's grown too quickly, a we keep bringing new people into the country. Let's try and resolve what we can in the country with... The health is disgraceful.
But you're a communications company, so you need to be able to communicate with people and not let us get as uptight as we are. It's part of my personality too, so I can't blame. Overall, I've been very happy with Telstra, but not since I changed to nbn. Thank you.
JOHN MULLEN:
OK. Thank you very much. And again, I can only apologize for all the troubles you've had with the nbn connection. Again, you'll forgive me, I'm obviously not aware and nobody here will be aware of your specific circumstances, but I can give you a full commitment that again, before you leave today, speak with one of our customer service representatives, or if you can't get satisfaction there, speak to Vicki or myself and we will address your issue for you.
MARGARET:
Thank you, but unfortunately everybody is passed on to the next person, to the next person. I don't know how many people have come into my home, and because I'm a Priority Assist person, I've had to stay at home, so I need to get out. I live alone, I need to have company. I've had to put off so many... I can't even go to the hairdresser, I can't make a hair appointment, but I can't make medical appointments. I haven't been able to make since... Well, it was due in about July. I haven't been able to make my breast... I've had breast cancer, but years ago, but I have to go every 12 months. I haven't been able to do that. I've cancelled other important appointments. My friends are not ringing me. They're sick and tired of hearing the stories, because it's on my mind. It's either that or grief at the moment, and there's not much of the grief coming through because it's all Telstra or nbn. I can't even stay in bed till 8:00 at morning, which I never ever do. I'm an early morning person, I like to walk early, but I can't even... Because I feel my body needs it so much, to have a morning in bed, I can't do that for fear of... The technicians come before or after the time.
You may have an appointment there, they'll come there and they'll say, "Because you're priority, we come early if we can." So look, I appreciate all of that, but what it's doing to me, I can't go on. I so badly need a holiday. You know? As so many other people.
JOHN MULLEN:
Absolutely. So look, we hear you loud and clear. I obviously don't know whether it's a Telstra issue, it's an nbn issue, but whatever the issue is, we will get somebody onto it straightaway and seek to resolve it for you as quickly as possible. Thank you. Number one?
NICOLE MCKECHNIE:
Chairman, I'd like to introduce Judy Stevens.
JUDY STEVENS:
Hello, Chairman. I have something positive to say. I'm a senior, I live in the CBD, and I've got a prepaid plan that's fantastic, and I really appreciated you giving free phones from public phones, free calls. I hope this will continue because our vulnerable people, or medical emergencies when a mobile mightn't be about, would really work. And you have a George Street store. I've been going in there to see John for more than a decade. They're very, very good in there and I just want to thank Telstra for looking after us.
JOHN MULLEN:
thank you. It's understandable when... (APPLAUSE) It's understandable when people have difficulties that they would raise it with us, but not everybody takes the trouble to thank us when things go well. So, really appreciate those comments. Thank you.
NICOLE MCKECHNIE:
Chairman, I'd like to introduce Antoinette Grant.
ANTOINETTE GRANT:
Thank you very much. I sympathize with speakers one and two, even so, I think if people get too long they have to be cut off. But I had similar problems, and I don't wanna talk about those because I'm in the middle of resolving it, but I have had similar problems. The thing is I've been a Telstra customer for about 40-odd plus years, and I intend staying with Telstra because the money is staying in Australia. That is my very, very strong belief. I just thought I might offer some opinions on how to resolve one or two problems. One is when you talk to the sales line or any other line, you constantly get somebody different. And so, you're starting again after waiting obviously for some considerable time, you get somebody who needs the explanation from beginning to end and you get absolutely sick and tired of it. And everybody has been very nice, exactly as this lady said. Everybody is trying to be helpful, but not usually able to be helpful, and not being able to follow up. The other thing is, somebody told me the other day, if you have problems with your phone cutting out, because I have a phone and an answer machine that has worked perfectly for more than 30 years, if you let the phone ring too long, it cuts out the phone.
So if you cut down the time that your phone rings before you answer it, that apparently seems to solve the issue for some people. And it might be worthwhile just checking up on that.
NIC MCKECHNIE:
Thank you.
JOHN MULLER:
Well, thank you very much for the first, for the kind words at the beginning. You know, we absolutely understand how critical connectivity is to everybody, but also to older or more vulnerable customers. And one of the main reasons that the company moved to the free calls from phone boxes was exactly that, in case of emergency, health or whatever, you know there's somewhere you can go. You can make a call, even if you've got... you've lost your mobile or you haven't got access or whatever. I think that's a hopefully a really positive step forward. On the other issue you raised, one of the reasons that we put such a lot of effort into getting digital interaction with customers is to reduce the risk of being passed from one person to another. You'll have one line of communication. But of course, we understand that digital interaction is not for everybody. And that's one of the reasons, again, why we brought the customer service people back onshore. So that you're now speaking to somebody here in Australia.
Because we think that again materially improves the experience that you will get. So, thank you for the suggestions. You're actually on the money. Those are things we're working hard on and we will continue to re-double our efforts accordingly.
NIC MCKECHNIE:
Chairman, I'd like to introduce (UNKNOWN)
SPEAKER:
Good morning. Just (UNKNOWN) is actually the name. In order to address the skills shortages that you mentioned in your speech, I just wondered what the practice and attitude to in-house training is. Corporations used to have a very different attitude. There was a lot of in-house training. And I know that has changed in, well, not just in recent decades. One of the reasons, I've heard, is that people will take the skills and move to another company and so the company that's trained them doesn't benefit. That's not necessarily the case if those people are looked after and promoted and valued. I'm reminded of meeting somebody a number of years ago in London who was a graduate trainee with IBM. Remember them? That was before even Microsoft existed. This particular meeting. And I was astonished to hear that the number of courses she was going to be on in the first two years, I think it was approximately 40% of her time, which was just phenomenal. They had the attitude that they, you know, train people their way and the people stay with them and they promote them.
And many people stayed for many, many years. Anyway, the question really is what sort of in-house training does Telstra have? Thank you.
JOHN MULLER:
Thank you. Thanks very much for the question. Look, I think I can actually give you some good news there. I think Telstra's in-house training capabilities and human resource capabilities are absolutely first class. The time that I've been here, I've been nothing but astounded by it. So, we have actually, in the last two, three years, completely transformed the way employees work in Telstra. And I think we have some 17,000 people today working in Agile teams, which is a complete change from the old silo sort of mentality that existed in older corporations. We have extensive training programs, as we've - remember, with the migration of our fixed business to the NBN, we had a lot of jobs that were now surplus. And many of those people have been retrained into new roles elsewhere in Telstra. We've had some 2,000 new, very technically capable people as part of that transition and we also, for retention of - attraction and retention, I think we have some of the more generous terms and conditions of employment in Australia.
We pay at top end of pay scales. We have quite a lot of benefits of 16 weeks of parental leave, I think, 15 days of additional personal leave. A whole lot of other benefits that not every company offers, which hopefully makes Telstra an attractive place to work. So, my comments were I think it's a problem for the whole country, the attraction of technical skills, but I think we're probably doing better than many in being able to attract and retain really, really capable talent. Thank you.
NIC MCKECHNIE:
Chairman, I'd like to introduce Patricia (UNKNOWN).
PATRICIA:
Thank you.
JOHN MULLER:
Can you help her with the microphone?
PATRICIA:
A little bit. Thank you. I'm not going to make a complaint. I'm going to tell you how wonderful it is that you put your call centre back to Australia. Being in my - Being over 80 and going downhill, it's wonderful to speak to someone who speaks my language. And I do think that you should put a time limit on how long people are allowed to speak. Because it almost, almost... makes you shut your eyes when it goes on for too long. Thank you.
JOHN MULLER:
Thank you. And if I may be so bold to say, you definitely don't look like you're going downhill. You look pretty good... pretty good for your age. I hope I'm half as good. As for terminating questions, look, I think it's important that we listen to what people have to say. That's what we're here for. It's the one opportunity that individual shareholders get to really engage with the board and with senior management. And we take that responsibility very seriously. Obviously, the people who do maybe speak for longer, they're not doing it to annoy anyone. They're doing it because they're really emotionally connected to the issue and it's important to them. So, I hear you and understand what you say, but I think I'd rather let people have their say and we do our very best to try to resolve it, rather than cutting people off in mid-flow. But thank you for your comments. (CLAPPING AND AUDIENCE CHATTER)
NIC MCKECHNIE:
Chairman?
JOHN MULLER:
Yes?
NIC MCKECHNIE:
I would like to introduce Peter Starr.
PETER STARR:
Good morning, John, and good morning fellow shareholders. John, I'd like to thank you very much for extending the courtesy on this 17th of August to myself to attend Andy's farewell in Sydney. It's a tradition that was held by your predecessor, Catherine Livingstone and David Thodey. I've been around since Sol Trujillo was CEO. And welcome, Vicki. A bit of a baptism of fire this morning, but anyway. Sincerely, John, it's good to see you have the tie on today. You didn't have it on - I had the suit on but I couldn't - John, on a serious note. I think it's important that you're thinking about maybe going in 12 months. On behalf of the shareholders I represent, I think it's important... leadership to stay, John. If you need to stay, we'd support that. Welcome to you, Vicki, on behalf of the shareholders. Big shoes to fill, your two predecessors. And John, if I may, Nora - I was with David Thodey on Sunday when he flew out to Europe. And he asked me to mention that he's really appreciated all the time and the things you've given to the board, and he wished you the best of luck, Vicki.
A question I have for you, John, is that we've seen what's happened with Optus, and of course, a lot of people are worried. I've had some clients that have been caught up in that, unfortunately. Not many. But for the reassurance that you may be able given and even Vicki, about people's data being protected. I know that I raised with the current minister that they're going to look at why telcos have to hold specific information for such a long period. And this is what happened in Optus. And that information was hacked, and passports, driver's license, and Medicaid cards, it's an absolute nightmare. So, maybe you'd like to just touch on that. Thank you.
JOHN MULLER:
Sure. Thank you. Thank you very much, as always. An AGM wouldn't be the same without you here. So, good to see you. Thank you. So, there are a few questions in there. Firstly, a couple of us had to search in the bottom of closets to find ties, particularly on a tour of our overseas directors. But we all found one. So, I'm glad you appreciate that. You commented briefly on my tenure. Look, and I would... I'd love to stay chairman of Telstra for another decade. I love the company passionately. I find it thoroughly enjoyable and interesting. But I also believe strongly that there's a cycle. There's a time in all organisations, both for senior management and for board members, where it's time to give someone else the keys and take the company on to the next level. So, I'm not about to rush off tomorrow. I'll make sure there's a smooth transition, but I think that sadly, that time has come where I need to do what I think is the best thing for the company. Then more seriously, or more importantly, and I've talked about the Optus situation and (UNKNOWN) but I think like Vicki said, and I say we can never give 100% guarantees.
It's just not possible. But firstly, as Vicki said, the Pegasus, the breach that happened to us, as Vicki said, was not actually Telstra. It was a third-party provider with some data that we could pretty well get from anywhere. I mean, I was on the list, so was Vicki. It was just name and email address. That was all it was. It was definitely wasn't a breach of Telstra's systems at all. And we are extremely vigilant, trying to ensure that we don't have any such breach. But, you know, we were talking about it yesterday, and a little anecdote, last weekend I was trying to do some work in the garden. I managed to hit a pipe, to my wife's chagrin. There was water everywhere. I had to get an emergency plumber in. So, firstly, on the telephone, they took my credit card details. Then when the plumber finally came out, I had to pay for the fix. He asked to see some ID. I gave him my driving license. So, I thought after it was all fixed, it was fine. But I thought afterwards, that company - I don't even know who they are because they were emergency plumbers.
They have my name, my address, my mobile phone number, they have my credit card number, and they had my driving license number. That data has gone into the ether. I don't know where it went. Have they deleted it? Have they sold it to someone? Have they kept it on file? Unfortunately, every one of are exposed to that every day. And so, the ability for us to say unequivocally, you will never have an issue, we just can't do that. But what I am extremely confident of is that Telstra's got the highest levels of security and protection that I've seen in industry in Australia. I think it's full credit to the team (UNKNOWN) and others here, who have put us in a really good position. Not 100% but I think better than most. And I would be bitterly disappointed if the same thing happened to us as happened to some other organisations. I hope we can give you some comfort of the level of capability that the company possesses. Thank you. Actually, sorry, I just noted you said one other thing about the laws requiring organisations to retain information.
That is a really good point. And there are a whole multitude of regulations and laws that require us to keep data in certain ways for certain periods of time, etc. And that's an issue right across industry. And I think the government is right on to that. And we are very much involved in discussions with them, trying to minimise that. You understand the push pull. On the one side, we're required to keep information for fraud purposes, law and order, well, that side of things. We need to be able to help authorities by law. But equally, does that need to be kept forever? No, it doesn't. So. I think the government is going to have to hopefully come up with a streamlined set of rules that everybody can adhere to. So, everyone knows how long your data is kept for and why. Sorry, I forgot that bit. Another question on three? Yeah.
NIC MCKECHNIE:
Apologies (UNKNOWN) Chairman. I would like to introduce (UNKNOWN)
SPEAKER:
(UNKNOWN)
NIC MCKECHNIE:
(UNKNOWN)
SPEAKER:
Yeah, that's okay.
NIC MCKECHNIE:
Thank you.
SPEAKER:
Thank you. Thanks for this opportunity. It's the first time I'm attending this shareholders meeting, even though I've been the shareholder since the beginning of the Telstra has been there. I've been a silent shareholder until now. So now, I'm looking at actually looking at my shareholdings. What I can see here is like Telstra has been growing, their total income has been gone from 29 billion to 22 billion in five years. And the profit has halved from 3.6 billion to 1.8 billion in five years. So, what kind of things can we expect in five years from now to Telstra? 'Cause, I can see, like, Vicki has given the next year it's going to be something like 23 billion revenue. But I don't know what will be the net profit out of that? And then what would be the outlook for the next five years? Can we expect any growth, not the negative growth we have seen in the last five years?
JOHN MULLER:
Yes. Thank you very much. It's a really good and important question. So, there are lots of competing issues. But by far, the biggest issue that reduced Telstra's profitability was the effective nationalisation of half of our business by the government to create the NBN. The NBN, I think recently declared a $4.4 billion EBITDA profit. I mean, all of that has come out of the industry. And Telstra obviously, being the largest player, suffered the worst. We lost over 3.5 billion dollars of net profit with the creation of the of the NBN. That's the single biggest reason. One of the challenges that Telstra had was that unlike in some other countries where it was sort of done overnight and shareholders knew from one day to the next - New Zealand and I think some other areas - what the new company would look like after being been cut in half. In Australia, It was eked out over a number of years. So, every year, when management started the year, they had a headwind of hundreds of millions of dollars of profitability that was going to be transferred to the NBN.
The good news is - I think both Vicki and I said - that it is over. Thus, we have now returned to growth with all of that NBN impact finally behind us. And in our outlook that we published for the year, is for earnings and revenue to grow this year. And we're very confident. One of the reasons why the board was willing to increase the dividend was that we are very confident of that trajectory. We're very confident of the capabilities of management now to take Telstra to a whole new era where we go back to growth again. I hope that helps.
NIC MCKECHNIE:
Chairman, I'd like to introduce (UNKNOWN)
SPEAKER:
Good morning, everybody. I'm (UNKNOWN) the shops under control. And also that we don't have to go overseas to make a phone call. Because you couldn't hardly understand those people, most of them. So, that is two big pluses. Also, I think there should be a little bit media promotion made, whereby there are lots of people having shares in your company but don't have the telephone in Telstra. So, why couldn't we promote more people who are directly or indirectly benefits from the share of the dividends, whereby those that are still with the opposition. And also, that way, the profits stays in Australia, whereby the profit of the other companies most likely go overseas and maybe partly even in the tax haven. So, we should have more promotions to keep that all the shareholders or most of them are, you know, trying to promote that indirectly or directly their benefits to being a shareholder customer. And that way we're getting, you know, a lot of people more into the system. By Telstra... at Telstra.
Thank you very much.
JOHN MULLER:
Thank you. Well, obviously, I can't comment on the structure of our competitors, but Telstra is 100% an Australian company. I think well over 90% of our shareholders are Australian. Well over 90% are Australian. And obviously, all of the profits that we make are retained in Australia and they're distributed to by and large Australian shareholders. We obviously do have a portion of our investors, particularly our institutional investors who are overseas. But retail investors are almost exclusively here in Australia. So, thank you. We agree and we're doing our best to make sure all of those other companies' customers end up coming to us, both as shareholders and customers. I have one, number four.
NIC MCKECHNIE:
Chairman, I'd like to introduce Brian Upton.
BRIAN UPTON:
Just a very short question, I hope. When I've been reading a lot of the correspondence lately, you know, I've been coming across this word Agile. Now, to me, I mean, my kind of mid-eighties and when I get on the tennis court, I find that I'm not quite as agile as I was as a teenager. So, I imagine you have a slightly different version of this, unless you mean your Agile teams are all scurrying around the office all the time. So, could you perhaps give me a couple of examples of what you mean by Agile?
JOHN MULLER:
I'll give it a go, and I'm sure you don't have to wait till your age to feel it. Agility was something in the past. I experience it every morning. Look, basically, I'm looking at Alex who'll give me a withering stare if I get this wrong. But basically, in legacy companies in the past - and Telstra was no different - you had lots of silos of activity, both regional or functional. And they really didn't talk to each other that much. So if you're starting a new project, you had to get somebody from -
BRIAN UPTON:
What do you mean by silo?
JOHN MULLER:
Sorry?
BRIAN UPTON:
The word silo has a different, you know, connotation to me. From the country.
JOHN MULLER:
Groups of people... groups of people and functions. So, the IT department would be sitting over here in isolation, the pricing department would be sitting here, and so on. And if you were launching a project - Vicki is launching a project, you've got to try and find representatives from all these and try to get them to talk together. And that is often quite inefficient. What Agile basically does is break down the structures of verticals and say, "This is the issue. We're going to have a combined team with multifunctional capabilities and from different areas. And then we're all going to work on that at the same time and we're going to do it in short bursts of activity where we set short term goals. We collectively, have we achieved them all? Yeah, we've done nine out of ten. Now, we'll fix the 10th. Now we move to the next goal." And basically, it transforms the speed of decision making. It means that the teams can make decisions and judgements without having to go back to their bosses and other departments and all these things that slows it all down.
That's basically what's happened and I think it's an extraordinary story. Telstra has moved some 17,000 people from the old way of working to Agile. And it's held up as a bit of a poster child I think, of Australian industry, how that's done.
BRIAN UPTON:
Yes, that sounds great to me, but I'm just wondering, I mean, communication is your thing. How come it's been in silos for so long? You know, why didn't you have this kind of worked out 30 years ago? It's a matter of simple communication. You talk to people.
JOHN MULLER:
Well, that's a very, very good question. But I think the whole you know, it's not like Telstra was the only one. That's the way we all do business. When I when I grew up in business, no one thought to question it. And suddenly, better minds now have said, "Well, actually there are other ways of doing these things."
BRIAN UPTON:
(UNKNOWN) I'm pretty ancient, but anyway, go on. Thank you for that (UNKNOWN)
JOHN MULLER:
I hope it was helpful. Is that right, Alex? Yeah, thank God. Number two.
NIC MCKECHNIE:
Chairman, I'd like to introduce Chris (UNKNOWN)
CHRIS:
Good morning, Chairman, Board. In the interest of being a more Agile company and with a great history behind it, I'd wonder what the strategic direction is for Telstra in regard to the other. So, fifth generation mobiles, we're talking about 80% coverage of the nation. And for the standard mobility, we're talking about 90 something. OK, so the question I have for you, and I'm an engineer by training, is there are large numbers of entities, shire councils, startup businesses that have basically found a fill-in niche competing against Telstra for those areas that Telstra finds it not profitable or worthy of pursuing in terms of this great big nation of ours. So, my question to you is - well, I'll give you an assessment. My assessment is that Telstra provides a very robust, very efficient solution technically. But the challenge is that for large areas of Australia, it's not worth pursuing. It's not worth pursuing because it's costly and the hurdles for profitability can't be met. And so therefore, we choose to go all those remote areas we won't service, or will continue using the legacy system that in some cases was put in two to three decades ago.
So, my challenge to you, the board, is to look at ways to extend the reach, even if it's not profitable. But it does build the concept of Telstra as a nation serving emergency service-backing organisation. And I'd say, in some ways, that build it and they will come. OK, that's it. Thank you.
JOHN MULLER:
Great. Thank you. Another good question. Look, I'd like to think that we are actually doing that, that Telstra does have, by far, the most extensive network. I think we have a million square kilometres more coverage than the next competitor, approximately. We've invested 4.5 billion in regional mobile and about 1.5 billion in fixed in the regions over the last five, six, seven years. The government's blackspot program, which is focused very much on areas where they are not economic. We have been overwhelmingly the biggest contributor to that program. I think over 900 sites or something that Telstra has subscribed for. Much greater than all the other competition added together. And we're continuing to do that. I think in 2025 we've committed to another 100,000 square kilometres of coverage. I'm absolutely confident that we will maintain network leadership and network supremacy across the nation. What is going to be interesting is that I think networks' priority is going to be defined differently as we go forward as well.
So, geographic coverage, obviously, but also as we move into a 5G world, the density of networks in cities, so ensuring there are no dead spots once you start moving into driverless cars and all of these sorts of autonomous things, you obviously can't afford to have the signal go down at the traffic light. So, it's got to be completely ubiquitous across town. So, I think it's not just going to be square kilometres. I'm confident we will retain our leading position there by a long way. But we will also be doubling down on the depth and scale of 5G networks to ensure that it's not just coverage but it's also accessibility everywhere. I mean, I just recently moved house and I'm delighted to tell Vicki that I actually got one gig download speed on my mobile, which is the first time I've seen that outside the laboratory. I think (UNKNOWN) organised especially for the day, but no, it's fantastic and that is a quantum leap forward in speed and capability that the whole industry didn't possess only a year or two ago.
Well, Nic, it looks like we've maybe concluded all the questions from the floor. In which case would you be so kind as to move to our online and then I think phone after that. Yeah?
NIC MCKECHNIE:
Yeah, that's right. Thanks, John. We do have several questions online. The first one's from Michael (UNKNOWN). So hopefully, Michael, I've got your name pronounced correctly. Telstra has had five years of declining sales and profits. You have reduced costs and overheads with your T 22 strategy. When are shareholders going to see a turnaround with increased sales and higher net profits? The NBN can no longer be used as an excuse for falling profits.
JOHN MULLER:
Excuse me. Well, hopefully I've addressed that in an earlier question. You're absolutely right. The NBN over the last five years is now behind us. So, it's not an excuse. It was never an excuse. It was just the reality of what was taking place. But as that is now, as you've observed, behind us, so the company is moving back into growth, and I think I've covered that both in terms of revenues and also profitability.
NIC MCKECHNIE:
Great. Thanks, John. Next question is from James Brown. Why is Telstra continuously pursuing NBN Co to install underground infrastructure over neighbouring properties, enforcing their right of entry when underground copper cable is obsolete? And given 5G network is forthcoming to this area, there is no valid reason to install underground infrastructure unless it was fibre optics to the premise, which is not the case. NBN Co has an obligation to follow TIO guidelines and this is questionable.
JOHN MULLER:
I'm not 100% sure what's behind the question. But look, we have no control, obviously, over what NBN does with its fibre. There are rules that govern our interaction with NBN and the provision of services to the home, where that is now exclusively NBN, over the industry. In business enterprise areas, it's a slightly greyer area and yes, the NBN does lay fibre sometimes where we have fibre and that's something we continue to have to work through as the thing rolls out, as industry rolls out. But again, we're not always best friends with NBN, but I think we have a good working relationship. It's important to the whole country and to us that NBN is successful, so we do our very best to work with them to achieve that outcome.
NIC MCKECHNIE:
Thanks, John. Next question is from (UNKNOWN) Stephen asks, the Digicel acquisition was very unusual, with taxpayers granting us billions in what effectively was a national security move, as China attempts to increase its influence in the Pacific. In light of this apparent role for Telstra in Canberra's national security strategies, what is our position in relation to making political donations and how do we go about lobbying ministers and regulators who specifically negotiated the Digicel deal with both the current and former government?
JOHN MULLER:
OK, a few questions in there. The easy one to answer is we do not make political contributions. We do occasionally attend dinners where we pay to attend that dinner or an event, a speaking event or whatever. But we do not make any political donations. Digicel was indeed a unique opportunity. It was negotiated by Andy and the team at the time, with the board's full support. And I can assure you that they were not easy negotiations. They went on for quite some time because, well, obviously if your government asks you to help, it's beholden on you to do so. But we were not going to do so at the expense of Telstra shareholders. So, we had a lot of discussions to make sure that, yes, we gave every possible assistance to the government of the day, but at the same time we would only do it if it was a good deal for Telstra and Telstra shareholders. And I'm very confident that that's where we landed, and it will be very good for Telstra shareholders going forward.
NIC MCKECHNIE:
Thanks, John. Next question is from Gavin Smith. Why do Telstra shareholders and our customers have to bring their Telstra problems to a shareholder meeting to get their issues resolved? Why cannot our employees and company take ownership to solve customer issues much quicker and to be more thorough?
JOHN MULLER:
Again, hopefully I've covered that. You don't have to come to Annual General Meeting to get your issues resolved. All of our doors are open. My door is open, Vicki's is open if you, for some reason, can't get resolution from the representatives of the company with whom you normally interact. But if you do bring it here, obviously, we will listen, and we'll do our very best to resolve it before you leave.
NIC MCKECHNIE:
Great. Thanks, John. Next question from (UNKNOWN) Inflation is currently 6.2%. Can you please advise, number one, what impact this is expected to have on Telstra's revenue cost and profit? Number two, whether the income performance measure noted in the remuneration report will be adjusted to focus on real growth rather than nominal growth.
JOHN MULLER:
So, what impact will it have? Obviously, it has a big impact on all of us in this room. And it behoves us to manage our costs as effectively as we can, which I think the company has done extremely well. On the other side, we have had modest price increases below the level of inflation. So, we try to always balance affordability, customer service and returns to shareholders, and we need to try and balance all of those. And what was the last bit?
NIC MCKECHNIE:
Sorry, John, I have just gone past that question. Technically challenged on coming back to it, so perhaps we'll just come back to that in just one moment.
JOHN MULLER:
(UNKNOWN)
NIC MCKECHNIE:
Yeah. Growth rates. We'll come back to that, John.
JOHN MULLER:
OK.
NIC MCKECHNIE:
OK.
JOHN MULLER:
Alright. Sorry. I should have written it down.
NIC MCKECHNIE:
Apologies for that. Next question from Edward Leslie Manuel. What plan does Telstra have to compete with those recent communications supply businesses that operate with small overhead costs? Given there are 11 on the (UNKNOWN) working for Telstra customers, shareholders and staff.
JOHN MULLER:
Well, I mean, look, Telstra is a ubiquitous legacy telecommunications provider that services most, if not all, of the needs of Australians. We don't seek to be a small niche provider. There are lots of other companies that I'm sure can do very well by taking a little piece of Telstra's world or the industry's world and just focusing on that and I'm sure, being very competitive. But we have a full range of services, full geographic coverage and a whole different promise and offering than those small niche operators. There's no point in comparing them. We're trying to achieve different things.
NIC MCKECHNIE:
So, I'm going to just go back to the second part of the question before. So, it was whether the income performance measure noted in the rem report will be adjusted to focus on real growth rather than nominal growth.
JOHN MULLER:
Yeah. So, every year the board spends a lot of time, firstly, through the People and Human Resources Committee. On looking at the incentive targets for all of the executives for the following year. And we have to take into account a whole raft of things, not just inflation and nominal versus inflation-linked, etc. I'm very comfortable that the committee is sufficiently diligent in looking at all the impacts. And remember, in the years gone by, we've actually had falling revenue. We still have to incentivise management. I think you have to incentivise management more in bad times than you do in good times. In good time, and the tide lifting all boats, etc., it's easy to convince yourself that you're doing a great job when there are a lot of external influences helping. In really tough times, like Telstra experienced when the NBN started to impact its profitability and our revenue fell and our profitability fell, that's when the real mettle of our management was challenged. And so, it's the board's job to absolutely incentivise managers to perform really well in that situation as well as in a good situation.
So, we don't just look at the nominal inflation figure and just base it on that. There's a lot more factors that goes into the decision.
NIC MCKECHNIE:
Alright. Thanks, John. Next question from Gavin Smith. Did Telstra ever get paid for all the copper piping we owned and not just hand over for free?
JOHN MULLER:
Yeah. To my knowledge, we sell the spare copper that we don't use. (UNKNOWN) I can't remember (UNKNOWN) how much it is, but it's quite a material sum. When copper's disconnected, we don't just leave it in the ground. It's taken out and it's resold.
NIC MCKECHNIE:
Great. Thanks, John. Next question from Margaret Mary Larkin. In my opinion, more staff need to be employed in busy Telstra offices and also proper customer service training provided to staff, not just online. So many customers that I speak with detest entering a Telstra office, especially if older, due to a delay and poor quality of service. Except for a few exceptions.
JOHN MULLER:
Well, I'm disappointed to hear that you've had those experiences. I think we've heard from several of the shareholders and customers in the room today that they've actually had very good experiences in the stores. And as Vicki and I, I think, mentioned, we have brought all 166 of those stores back in-house and they are managed directly by Telstra now, rather than a third-party franchise, as was the case before. Which I think is hopefully going to address most of those issues that you raise.
NIC MCKECHNIE:
Next question is from Margaret (UNKNOWN). I do not agree with company's proposal towards net zero, as all of the countries who are manufacturing the wind turbines and solar panels are not complying to this and continue to pollute our planet. Net zero will drive Australia into further bankruptcy.
JOHN MULLER:
I'm not sure if that was a statement or a question, but obviously, we take our obligations... ethical obligations as well as legal ones very seriously. We have committed to carbon neutrality by 2020, which we achieved. We've committed to 100% renewable energy or to source 100% renewable energy equivalent to our use of energy by 2025, and to a 50% reduction in total emissions by 2030. And we just last year, I think, really upped the bar by including our scope three emissions as well, which was 70%, I think, of all the total emissions. So, it's quite a significant charge. I'm very comfortable that we've got an ambitious but realisable target doing our bit to help the global problem of climate change.
NIC MCKECHNIE:
Thanks, John. Next question from Chris Wood. Chris asks, customer of Telstra for 20 plus years and a shareholder. Recently misled repeatedly re plan change, repeated lack of response, many calls to call centre, significant language barrier and poor service. No willingness to remedy and told to go to Ombudsman. I've observed continued decline in customer service and frustrating interactions with overseas call centres and chat services. What is Telstra doing to increase and maintain customer service levels and services being returned to Australia?
JOHN MULLER:
Well, I think we've covered most of that. We're doing an awful lot in that area and the results are showing. I won't go through all of them again. But like with other speakers, please contact us in the same way that you've contacted us for this question. Give us a name and address and we will have somebody call you. (UNKNOWN) and we will have somebody call you and address your specific issues as soon as we can.
NIC MCKECHNIE:
Thanks, John. Next question from Giles Francis Baxter. Is Telstra still attempting to gender balance its current workforce by using methods that actively discriminate against males to ensure more females get promoted? If so, how do you justify this practice as discrimination in any form is wrong? I can only imagine how your loyal male workforce feels being overlooked in this disgraceful way.
JOHN MULLEN:
Well, the simple answer is no, but I won't stop there. It would be rude. No, I think we've done actually a really good job on diversity within Telstra. It's never a never finished program, but we're at some 34% overall, I think, of female representation on the board and executive level, it's over 40 and we have a whole number of programs running on a graduate program. I think we see 50% of the graduate intakes to be female, but not just gender. So indigenous, I think 5%, disability, five or 10% as well. So we are very conscious of the need for diversity and we don't discriminate against anybody, neither men nor women.
NIC MCKECHNIE:
Thanks, John. Next question from Teresa Calogero. Hopefully, I've pronounced your name right, Teresa. The Telstra dividend paid is greater than the profits made, EBITDA with interest rates increasing, can Telstra continue to borrow money to pay the dividend? This has happened in the past and Telstra has had to slash its dividend. Isn't it wise to cut the dividend now so it is lower than profits made?
JOHN MULLEN:
No, it's firstly I think by EBITDA it pretty meant net profit, but yes, the dividend was, I think it was 115% of net earnings this year. The reason we still decided to increase the dividend was because at the conclusion of the T22 program, we really now see the company returning to growth and we think that we can justify the increase in the dividend. We know how important dividend is to shareholders. We can justify it because we think our growth is now going to continue. We would not be doing it if we felt that the company's earnings were going to be flat or falling in the future. So while that percentage is higher today as earnings grow, that percentage will fall back. Obviously, we do not intend to maintain an above 100% for the long term, but we're very comfortable that the trajectory is good.
NIC MCKECHNIE:
Another question from Giles Francis Baxter. At the AGM, I'm hearing so many issues about customer service. So what is Telstra going to do about these issues? There... These are our shareholders. So I can only imagine how our other customers are feeling who don't have the same loyalty to the company. If we don't fix this, we will continue to lose our customers to other companies.
JOHN MULLEN:
Well, again, I think that we've discussed that subject at length. I won't go through all the things again, but I can assure you it is absolutely top of mind for the board. It's top of mind for Vicki and her team in T25. And although it's of no comfort to someone who's had a bad experience, the improvement has been absolutely radical. When you look at all of the numbers and the metrics which the board do all the time, the improvement has been dramatic. Not fixed. Still plenty of issues that we haven't resolved, of course, but compared to where the company was only a few years ago, it's dramatic. Like 70% of inbound calls coming in have been eliminated simply because those people don't have problems anymore. There's still a lot of people who do and we're working on them, but I'm very comfortable that we're on the right trajectory.
NIC MCKECHNIE:
So another question from Gavin Smith, what is the benefit to Telstra shareholders of another on-market shareholder buyback when this value should have been paid to current shareholders whom remain with Telstra even today? All the best and thank you to the Chairman for all of the work for Telstra over many years.
JOHN MULLEN:
Well, a share buyback does benefit the current shareholders. And the whole reason that you engage in a share buyback is to reduce the number of shares on offer and therefore the value of the company is now divided by a smaller number of shares than it was before. Therefore, the value theoretically should rise. And similarly, we have fewer shares to pay a dividend to. So it gives the company the ability to pay a high dividend going forward. So a share buyback is directly beneficial to the shareholders of the day.
NIC MCKECHNIE:
Paul (UNKNOWN) asks a question. The official cash rate has increased 2.5% to 2.6% and is forecast to increase to 3.75% in 2023. Given the impact this will have on the discount rate used in Telstra's impairment testing, can you please advise the impact of the rise in interest rates on the carrying value of goodwill and other assets?
JOHN MULLEN:
So obviously the audit committee are external auditors and the board review that every year and we do an impairment test on all assets. But you'll be glad to know that even with the rise in interest rates, we have no risk of any impairment across any of our businesses.
NIC MCKECHNIE:
Thanks, John. Giles Francis Baxter, again. I understand that Telstra has now ceased its Telstra alumni discount for its past employees. I would like to see Telstra reverse this decision. We all know that we often pay a premium price for Telstra services, but if our ex-staff can still tell all of their family and friends that they are still with us, that's much more effective than many of those TV commercials which are now running and probably more cost-effective in the long run.
JOHN MULLEN:
Let me take that one on notice and we'll talk with management and make a decision whether we leave it as it is or revert.
NIC MCKECHNIE:
Thanks, John. Chris Wood asks, Is the chat function also operated in Australia? I'm cheeky we talk about messaging function for customer service.
JOHN MULLEN:
That I'm not sure. Vicki, would you know the answer to that one.
VICKI BRADY:
Yes. So thank you for the question. A lot of our chat functionality is still operated by team members offshore, not all onshore in Australia.
NIC MCKECHNIE:
Thanks, Vicki. Peter Caliero, I noticed the broadband business had a poor year. What plans do you have to improve the broadband business in future years? Are other telcos eating your lunch in broadband?
JOHN MULLEN:
Well, I don't think anyone's eating our lunch, but clearly, the broadband has been challenging for us. The migration to the NBN, we've had quite a few people talking about some of the service issues that came with it. Also, obviously profitability issues in the, when Telstra was the provider of wholesale provider of broadband services, we obviously made a higher margin than we do now where we have to buy that service off the NBN. So it's not where we would like it to be, but we have the ambition to get it into the teens in terms of returns, which I think we will achieve.
NIC MCKECHNIE:
OK. Question from Stephen Mayne. Did any of the five main proxy advisers AC, SI ownership matters, Glass Lewis, ISS and ASA recommend to vote against any of today's resolutions. Has there been a material proxy protest vote against any of today's resolutions? Will you disclose the proxy votes before the debate on today's resolutions so shareholders can ask questions about the reasons if there have been any protest votes? And did you consider disclosing the proxy position to the ASX with the formal addresses as more companies are doing these days?
JOHN MULLEN:
Right. A lot of questions in there Stephen. And so no, there have been no recommendations against any of the resolutions of the meeting. We do disclose the proxy positions of the resolutions before we actually finalise the discussion, as we always have done. We had no protest of any on anything material to advise the ASX, but obviously, if there was something material then under the normal disclosure rules we would do so.
NIC MCKECHNIE:
Thanks, John. Asked by Giles Francis Baxter, as Telstra has separated its structures, towers, poles, masts, etc. into a stand-alone company, will this increase the costs of supplying our mobiles network? Also, as the cost of hosting mobiles infrastructure increases, will the mobiles group go back to building their own structures again to save costs?
JOHN MULLEN:
If I understand the question right to all the different questions in there, firstly, and we will cover it at the scheme meeting afterwards, but the scheme will not change anything that customers, employees, shareholders experience. It is purely a legal restructure so it won't be any impact there. As far as I know, we build all mobile towers and infrastructure that we need. Now I'm not quite sure what was meant by that last part of the question.
NIC MCKECHNIE:
OK. Thanks, John. That deals with all of the online questions for item two. We're now going to turn to the phone and see if there are any questions on the phone. Operator, are there any phone questions for this item?
SPEAKER:
Chairman, I have a question from Mike Roby. Mike, please go ahead.
MIKE :
Good morning, everybody. It's still mourning. And my name is Mike Roby and I'm a volunteer monitor for the not-for-profit Australian Shareholders Association and hold about 98 million, about 100 million in proxies for most of this time. We do actually represent all retail shareholders. And may I first start by apologising for not having somebody in the audience. We did have a person on the ground planned to be in Sydney, but he got the flu and was coughing and probably would have emptied the stadium given the current concerns with COVID so it wasn't COVID. May I first start Mr Chair, by thanking you for meeting us in advance where a number of our questions were advanced. And in fact the questions prior in this meeting have answered many more. We also wish to thank Mr Tan, the best for the future and welcome Miss Brady to the running of our company. Look, given that many of the questions have been answered, I might just like to say that typically shareholders are often presented with eye-wateringly expensive transformation projects, and Telstra was a fairly expensive project with associated large write-offs.
And we assess that shareholders find it quite difficult to assess how they've gone because a much of the, if you like, the emotion happens under the water. However, may we congratulate you on yours? It was very well communicated. I think, your my comms on how the whole T22 was structured, measured and assessed were extremely good and the customers have noticed that the simplification of plans in large part and the removal of what we call gotcha costs for contracts and so on has basically led to and the improvement of online services, basically pretty obvious to most customers. I think you've done a great job so well done on that. And we do, of course, being shareholders that we just would like to see the shareholder value increase over the next year and are looking forward to the impact of the T25. Look, I might leave it there because we have some questions later on. Thank you.
JOHN MULLEN:
Great. Well, thanks very much. And sorry you couldn't be here. But I know we have met with your team before, and always happy to do so in the future as well. So thank you for the comments on T22 success that we we're really pleased, really chuffed. I think it's an absolutely fantastic achievement of management to have delivered what they have done and we obviously share your view and concern that we continue to deliver increased shareholder value going forwards.
SPEAKER:
There are no further questions on the telephone at this time.
NIC MCKECHNIE:
Thanks, John. That concludes the question session for this item.
JOHN MULLEN:
Great. Okey dokey. First, I should, I think advise that lunch is now being served outside for anyone who's interested. So next up is item three, the director re-election. So as I mentioned earlier, Eelco Blok and Craig Dunn are both standing for re-election today. And their details are set out in the notice of meeting. Items three A and three B will be voted on separately. But to assist with the efficient conduct of the meeting for the benefit of shareholders today I'll deal with a discussion of Eelco and Craig's re-election together. I would now like to invite Eelco and Craig to address the meeting. While we hear from them both. If you have any questions on their re-elections, please come to your nearest microphone, submit your questions online, or raise your hand on the phone line. Eelco.
EELCO BLOK:
John, thank you. Good morning, ladies, gentlemen and fellow shareholders. My name is Eelco Blok, and I have had the honour serving on the Telstra board of directors for the past three years. I've participated in our T22 transformation, one of the most ambitious transformations in the history of the telecommunications industry. I'm excited about our T 25 strategy and look forward to contributing to this next trajectory. Since leaving my role as CEO of Netherlands-based KPN four and a half years ago, I've built on my over 35 years of experience in the telco industry. In addition to my responsibility on the Telstra board, I'm serving on the Greek OTA group of companies and Fairfirm Board performing advisory services for IFM investors and served on the board of directors of Deutsche Glass Pfizer, all related to the evolving telecom industry. These positions help me stay current with industry trends and keep me prepared to contribute to the strategic direction of Telstra. I would be honoured to get your support so I can keep contributing to the future of Telstra.
I look forward to serving Telstra during the next three years. Thank you.
JOHN MULLEN:
Thank you, Eelco. Craig.
GRAIG DUNN:
Thank you, John and Eelco. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. It's been a great honour for me to serve on the board of Telstra as your representative, and I am grateful for the opportunity to say a few words to you this morning. Telstra, of course, occupies a very special place in the history of our great nation and has always made an enduring and very significant contribution to the communities in which it works. And I know it will continue to do so going forward. As John and Vicki have pointed out through the successful implementation of T22, over the last three years, the company has gone through an extraordinary programme of change. I think that means Telstra is much better served going forward to adapt and grow in a rapidly changing environment and to do so in a way that better serves our customers and importantly reward you appropriately for your investment in the company. During that time. It's been my great privilege to be part of a very diligent and hardworking board, very ably chaired by John.
It's also been my honour to be a member of the Audit and Risk Committee and also to have chaired that committee for the last three years. Following on from Nora. I'm very conscious of the important role a board plays in the stewardship and governance of any company and believe my background and career, including my learnings from my previous roles, mean that I can make a real contribution to the board of Telstra. So thank you for listening to me this morning and with your support, I look forward to continuing to serve Telstra and its shareholders over the next three years. Thank you, Chairman.
JOHN MULLEN:
Thank you very much, Eelco and Craig. So the board other, of course than Eelco and Craig in respect of their own re-election, unanimously recommends their re-election. So the proxy and direct voting positions for item three A and B are being shown on the screen now. As indicated in the notice of meeting, I also intend to vote all available proxies in favour of the re-election of Eelco and Craig. So, I will now take questions from the floor.
SPEAKER:
Chairman, I'd like to introduce Natasha Leave.
NATASHA LEAVE:
Thank you, Chairman. Excuse me. Not a specific question about these candidates, but I did note that you mentioned that they. Are going to be a bit of a changeover in the board members. I'd just like your reassurance that Telstra's committed to having at least 40% female representation. And also you've talked about diversity within your workforce. I think that it's necessary to emphasize that there should be mindful of needing to have greater diversity in other areas across the board because the board should be representative of the community it represents. And as I say, that's best practice and has shown that companies perform best when they do reflect the community. So we have that assurance?
JOHN MULLEN:
You unequivocally have that reassurance. Yeap. We publicly commit to the 40% target on the board and there will occasionally be ups and downs with people leaving and join depending on timings. But overall our commitment is absolutely solid. We will achieve that diversity
NATASHA LEAVE:
Other forms of diversity.
JOHN MULLEN:
Yes, absolutely.
NATASHA LEAVE:
Yeah. And that some of the boards are moving towards 50%. But that's another discussion.
JOHN MULLEN:
Yes. Well, we have two more. I think I mentioned earlier we have two directors about to join where I'm pretty confident that you will view the choices positively.
NATASHA LEAVE:
Right. Thank you.
JOHN MULLEN:
Thank you.
NIC MCKECHNIE:
Chairman, I would like to introduce Peter Starr.
PETER STARR:
Thanks, John. Some years ago, you probably remember that the votes that I had in relation to you, Craig, that given what had happened at Westpac. So I'd just let you know that there's been a change from the votes I hold. So we'll be voting for you. That was in a period of, as you know, what happened at Westpac and now most of the board's gone. I was one of the strong opponents for the whole board to go. Thank you, John.
JOHN MULLEN:
Thank you. Well, we much appreciate that. Craig is an exceptional director and we give him our unanimous support and we're pleased to hear that you do as well. Thank you. Looks like we've exhausted the room, I think. Nic.
NIC MCKECHNIE:
OK. Great. Let's go to online, John. So we have a question from Stephen Mayne. Craig Dunn was CEO of AMP for five years until 2013, a company which has been an ongoing disaster for shareholders for more than 20 years. When he last stood for election as a Westpac director in 2018, there was a 35% protest vote, so he retired at the 2021 AGM. He suffered a 29.6 protest per cent protest at the Telstra AGM in 2019. So why has the board endorsed his re-election today and how big was the proxy protest vote?
JOHN MULLEN:
Well, actually, I find that question somewhat offensive. Craig is an absolutely outstanding director. This is a Telstra shareholder meeting, is not a Westpac shareholder meeting or anything else. In the years that Craig has been with us, he's been an absolute exemplary director. I would state my reputation personally and I'm sure my colleagues would as well, on his integrity and the contribution that he brings to our board. Extreme level of diligence in chairing the Audit Committee. Also, a number of the subcommittees that we've had, he has participated in exemplary fashion. His judgement, diligence and skills are second to none. And as I say, I would bet my personal reputation on Craig's ability to be one of the best directors I've ever worked with.
NIC MCKECHNIE:
Thanks, John. Another question from Stephen. After 14 years on the board and six years as chair, it is very unusual for a chair to flag possibly running for a fifth term next year and potentially staying for 16 years in total. Could the Chair explain what process is currently in place to source his replacement and also who conducts his performance review within the board each year? Who on the board is leading the process to ensure the chair doesn't stay too long? And will any third parties be involved in the chair's succession process?
JOHN MULLEN:
Well, Stephen, you'll be glad to know you won't have to put up with me for too much longer because I am not going to stay here all that much longer. I think I mentioned it a little bit earlier, so we have a pretty robust process going on. One thing that was very important is that we didn't have the CEO succession and the chair succession at the same time. I think everybody would agree that doesn't make for good sense and stability in a company. We had a very successful CEO succession process, absolutely delighted with Vicki as our new CEO. So the focus has now turned into my succession, which is top of mind for the board. We have a number of excellent candidates on the board already, and then we are also filling a couple of the vacant positions in the coming months with some external directors. I believe at the end of that, my colleagues, they won't be my decision. My colleagues will have a really robust and qualified number of candidates to choose from to be my successor. As for timing, I think I said in my speech, if we get all that done by next AGM, next October, then I won't stand for re-election.
If for any reason we're still finalising the board renewal or whatever with my colleagues' approval, I would be prepared to stay on for a number of months, perhaps to finish that process if it added value. If it didn't, then I'd leave anyway. If it did, I would be very hopeful that we could resolve it all in a matter of months, not years. So, Stephen, I will not be here for another full term. Rest assured.
NIC MCKECHNIE:
Thanks, John. There are no more online questions for item three, so we're going to go to the phones. Operator, are there any phone questions for this item?
SPEAKER:
Chairman. I have a question from Mike Roby. Mike, please go ahead.
MIKE :
Thank you, Mr Chairman. Look, we, too, are aware of Mr Dunn's position of CEO of AMP at the time when that company developed a damaging culture on a profit before customer service as revealed by the royal commission. We also know that last year there was continuing fallout of Westpac in the form of $113 million fine from ASIC's stemming from the same commission at the time when Mr Dunn was a board member at that company. We did agonize over the decision of his re-election. But given the improvement in customer service and culture in Telstra during a period in which Mr Dunn was a director, he's clearly changed his way and so will in balance vote in favour. My question actually is a general one concerning your board skills matrix, which we did discuss when we met. These are quite important to shareholders because we can assess if proposed incoming directors do in fact fill skills gaps. So, the more granular the skills matrix, the more we can sort of kind of test our understanding of why you've picked particular directors.
And this is particularly important this year because you plan a significant refresh of the board. Your matrix is, we believe, through high level, there are much better models out there in the marketplace, and it's really not particularly useful at giving shareholders much guidance for independent candidates. So may I ask that you provide somewhat more granularity in the coming financial year please, as you repopulate the board? Thank you.
JOHN MULLEN:
Yeah, sure. Firstly, I'd just one correction. Craig was not at AMP when any of the issues you referred to arose and had absolutely nothing to do with Craig and his tenure at AMP. For the record. On the skills matrix. Look, we continue to refresh that every year. We also assess performance and I think part of the previous question as well. We have a review of all director performance and skills and capability and contribution every year and the chair of the audit committee reviews my performance similarly. So we all get to compare equally. I'm very comfortable that we have a good balance of skills across the board and some deep domain experience with our ex Global CEOs a big telecommunications companies overseas through governance, through customer focus, through a whole range of different attributes. I'm pretty confident the balance is good. I think the new directors coming in will maintain or even improve that balance. But certainly, I hear your question and we'll make sure that in the next annual report we try and put a little bit more granularity around that for you.
SPEAKER:
There are no further questions on the telephone at this time.
NIC MCKECHNIE:
Great. Thanks. So, John, that concludes the question. Session for item three.
JOHN MULLEN:
Fantastic. Thank you. So now I move to items four and five on today's agenda, which relate to the allocation of equity to your CEO, Vicki Brady, and to Telstra's FY22 Executive Variable Remuneration Plan or EVRP and the adoption of our 2022 Remuneration Report. Details of the proposed grants to Vicki under item four as set out in the notice of meeting. Vicki's total remuneration package for 2022, during which time she held the role of Chief Financial Officer and group Executive Strategy and Finance included variable remuneration delivered through the EVP. In summary, the number of restricted shares and performance rights to be granted was based on the dollar value of Vicki's individual EVP outcome, and her individual EVP outcome was determined by the board taking into consideration Telstra's performance during the 2022 financial year against the specific measures set by the Board, as well as the individual performance. The board, other than Vicki considers Vicki's total remuneration package for the 2022 financial year, including the proposed grants to be appropriate in all the circumstances and recommends shareholders vote in favour of items 4A and 4B.
And five provides an opportunity for shareholders to comment on and ask questions about our 2022 remuneration report. While the vote on this item is advisory, the board does take the outcome of the vote into consideration when reviewing Telstra's remuneration practices and policies. The board recommends that shareholders vote in favour of item five the adoption of our remuneration report. Items four and five will be voted on separately, but as they both relate to remuneration related matters, we will similarly deal with the discussion of the two items together. So the proxy and direct voting position for items four and five should be now showing. Yes, they are now being shown on the screen. As indicated in the notice of meeting, I intend to vote all available proxies in favour of the grants to Vicki and the adoption of the remuneration report. So if you have any questions regarding items four or five, please come to your nearest microphone, submit your questions online, or raise your hand on the phone line.
I will be concluding the AGM at the end of this question session, so if you have any final questions you'd like to ask about your company that are relevant to shareholders as a whole, please also ask those now. So let me move to questions from the floor, please. Number three.
NIC MCKECHNIE:
Chairman, I would like to introduce Peter Starr.
PETER STARR:
Thanks, John. This question always comes up. Came up for Andy, it came up for David. So in relation to this, I think it's a very proper and right thing that the granting of the rights to Vicki we'll certainly be supporting it with the votes I have and wish you all the best, Vicki. And just one other thing, John. Andy, I hope you are enjoying your retirement. It was great to catch up and I think Vicki's catching up with you later on tonight. Thank you.
JOHN MULLEN:
Well, thanks very much for the kind comments. And I think Andy will definitely be enjoying the first AGM. He didn't have to sit in the seat and face all sorts of questions. That's very nice comments. Thanks a lot. Any other questions from the floor? Nic, it looks like no more questions from the floor. It's a first.
NIC MCKECHNIE:
OK. No problems. Paul (INAUDIBLE), John is asking, Telstra's annual report highlights that the share price of $3.85 is unchanged from the price in FY 2019 and a long way from the T2 price in 1999 of $7.40. Given your past remuneration policies have not contributed to any growth in share price or shareholder value, what changes have Telstra made to ensure executive remuneration is actually aligned with shareholder value?
JOHN MULLEN:
Well, I would just remind you that the reason, the main reason that earnings in the share price have not advanced further is because 50% of the business was renationalised by the Government. 50% of our earnings were transferred effectively to a new government entity. Inevitably, that led to a decline against previous periods. But I think we've commented a couple of times, we're absolutely delighted that that transition is now behind us. The new Telstra is free of that baggage and we are able to judge the performance of the company and management on the growth that we now deliver going forward and we are on a good trajectory to do that. So I believe we have addressed the issue.
NIC MCKECHNIE:
Thanks, John. The next question is from Stephen Mayne. And before I read this question, can I just make the point that I am reading the questions verbatim and some of the material in the questions may not necessarily be the view of Telstra. Could the Chair and CEO please comment on the ESG elements in Vicki's contract and incentives and whether on the environmental side they are concerned about Telstra being a permanent minority shareholder in Foxtel, which carries Sky News, the largest source of climate-denying propaganda in Australia? When are we going to stop being embarrassed by being in a minority partnership with the Murdoch family, which continue to fight positive climate change policies on a global scale?
JOHN MULLEN:
OK. Well, I can answer that one pretty quickly. We're very pleased with our ESG progress. The first part of your question. It previously was not an executive compensation. We have now included it for the first time. Which I think management wholeheartedly support. I think it's a good measure to include and we're in a good trajectory. So I think that's in a very good place. With respect to your comments about Foxtel, I won't worthy some of the things you said there with the response and we respect Foxtel, we respect Foxtel shareholders. The reason that we're a shareholder in Foxtail is that all of us use mobile devices today and the content that is shown on those devices is critical to many customers using us. Foxtel provides one of a number but a very important access to media. Telstra does not want to become a media company ourselves. We're going to go and buy a film studio in Hollywood or something. We're very happy to partner with other major players. And Foxtel is an excellent and valuable shareholder, as is their owners.
NIC MCKECHNIE:
Thanks, John. And another question from Stephen Mayne. Telstra has 1.25 million shareholders, but it is estimated less than 5% bother to vote at the AGM. When disclosing the outcome of voting on all resolutions today, including the REM items, could you please advise the ASX how many shareholders voted for and against each item similar to what happens with a scheme of arrangement? This will provide a better gauge of retail shareholder sentiment on all resolutions, and it was a disclosure initiative adopted by the likes of Metcash, Altium and Dexus after their 2021 AGMs.
JOHN MULLEN:
I don't normally... So, the deciding factor in any vote is the number of shares voted rather than the number of individual shareholders. Sue, do we... Is there any reason why we couldn't or would? No.
SPEAKER:
(INAUDIBLE)
JOHN MULLEN:
OK. Leave it with us, Stephen. Let me take it up and we'll discuss. I don't think it's a huge issue either way, but we'll certainly have a look at it and we'll get back to you.
NIC MCKECHNIE:
Great. So no more online questions, but we will go to the phones. Operator, any phone questions?
SPEAKER:
Chairman. I have a question from Mike Roby. Mike, please go ahead.
MIKE :
Thank you very much. Look, first of all, congratulations on placing Vicki on exactly the same package that the previous CEO left. I think that's probably a model that will be copied in the future and basically lead to a bit of diversity interest in women participating in big companies. My question is about the performance rights portion of the CEO's plan in which they can be awarded even if the shareholder return is negative. Now, we understand in the past the famous NBN headwinds and the enormous amount of money that was destroyed from Telstra provided unusual conditions and therefore there was some pain coming and we could not expect a continuing increase in share price. However, while you are in discussions today and with us, it is clear that these headwinds have almost died down and the future will be a newly transformed Telstra in a much more sort of clear wind. So why should shareholders continue to suffer negative returns if the total shareholder return remains negative? Thank you.
JOHN MULLEN:
Yeah, it's a really good question. I know we've discussed this many times, but I think I referred to earlier that actually in difficult times in a company, in times when the company is under pressure, even if it's for whatever reason, competition or government, fiat or whatever it is, those are the most important times for you to reward your management coming to work every day. It's difficult. You're under a huge amount of pressure from media, from shareholders, from right across the board, and delivering the best possible performance as a management team at that time is absolutely critical to the fortunes of the company. And if you don't have the top people earning the commensurate level of income for the work they put in, then the result, the loss of the shareholder value decline will be even bigger. We'll see share price fall more and you'll see dividends reduced more, etc. So, you know, we are firmly of the view that we need to tailor the plan to the objective of the day. Now, you're absolutely right, the NBN is behind us, so we're not anymore building in a factor of a negative headwind from NBN that's behind us.
But we will tailor the plan each year to the challenges of that year and obviously increase shareholder value, increase share price dividend, all of those objectives figure high on the list. I think... I think we're in a good place there.
SPEAKER:
There are no further questions on the telephone at this time.
JOHN MULLEN:
Fantastic. OK. I think that brings us to the end. Nic, before I move to close the question, do we have any other questions there?
NATASHA LEAVE:
I do have one final question online by Chris Wood. Just coming back on a question he asked previously. He says, My apologies. I should have also asked if the chat function will be brought back to Australia.
JOHN MULLEN:
Back to you again, Vicki. Sorry.
VICKI BRADY:
No. Thanks. Thanks, Chris, for that question. At the moment, we don't have those plans. Immediate plans to bring it back onshore. But as part of our strategy, obviously, customer experience is right at the front and centre of that. So that's something we'll consider over time, but no immediate plans.
JOHN MULLEN:
Thank you.
NIC MCKECHNIE:
Thanks, Vicki. So there are no further questions online, John.
JOHN MULLEN:
Fantastic. OK. Thanks, Nic. And shareholder. So now we've finished our discussions on items four and five. Please submit your votes online or complete your voting card for these items. Shareholders, that concludes the formal business of today's annual general meeting. For those of you online, if you haven't already done so, please submit your votes. For our shareholders here in the room, there are attendants carrying ballot boxes throughout the room, and ballot boxes are also located near the exits. The poll will remain open for a further 10 minutes to enable shareholders to submit their votes. The results of the poll will be available later today and can be obtained by visiting the ASX or our website. So I now declare our annual 2022 general meeting closed, subject to finalisation of the poll on items 3 to 5. And on behalf of the board, I thank you, shareholders, very much for joining us today in person, online or on the phone. So we will now take a short 30-minute break and commence the scheme meeting at 12:40.
Yeah? (INAUDIBLE) If everybody wants to stay, please get a sandwich or something. Cup of tea and then we'll start the scheme meeting, as I say, in exactly 30 minutes time. No, it's too late now.
SPEAKER:
No, you're on.
JOHN MULLEN:
I'm on? Yeah, sorry, for those of you still in the room, please visit the shareholder registration desk outside to register for the scheme meeting if you want to attend.
The Telstra Corporation Limited Scheme Meeting was held on Tuesday 11 October 2022 in the Hilton Sydney Ballroom, Level 3, 488 George Street, Sydney NSW 2000 and online using the platform provided by our share registry, Link Market Services. The recording of the meeting is available below.
Recording of the 2022 Scheme Meeting held on Tuesday 11 October 2022 in the Hilton Sydney Ballroom, Level 3, 488 George Street, Sydney NSW 2000.
SPEAKER:
We acknowledge the lands of the traditional custodians across Country. From the Noongar peoples in the West, to the Kulin and Kurnai nations of the South, and the clans of Nipaluna. To the Ngunnawal peoples and their sunrise peoples of the Gadigal and (UNKNOWN) of the East to the Yaggera, Turrbal and Bindal peoples of the North. And we pay out deep respect to them, to their Wisdom Keepers of the past, to the knowledge holders and seekers of today and our future Custodians. Our lands nurture us as we continue the connection and our spirituality with Country. (VIDEO PLAYS)
NIC MCKECHNIE:
Well, good afternoon again, I am Nic McKechnie, Communications Executive at Telstra. And I have the pleasure of being your emcee for this scheme meeting relating to Telstra has proposed corporate restructure. I would like to begin by respectfully acknowledging that I am joining today from the lands of the Gadigal people of the Eora nation. On behalf of Telstra, I would like to acknowledge and pay my respects to the Traditional Custodians of Country throughout Australia and recognize their contribution and connection to land, waters and culture. We pay our respects to their Elders past, present and emerging. Well welcome back to shareholders who joined us for our AGM earlier today. And welcome to everyone joining us online from wherever you may be. This is a hybrid meeting, as I mentioned earlier, with shareholders joining us in person online rather and by phone. For those of you in the room here you'll have been given a card when you registered for this meeting. Orange cards are for shareholders who may speak and vote, purple cards are for shareholders who may speak but not vote, you will need your card to ask a question or to re-enter the meeting.
A slide is about behind me now which explains how to vote. If you have any queries about how to vote, please speak with one of the staff in our room, or in the shareholder registration area outside and they'll be happy to assist you. The procedure of how to ask a question here in the room is now being shown on the screen. And for those shareholders joining us online today on your screen, you'll see our virtual meetings guide. This contains all of the information you need to know about how to vote and how to ask questions. You can also call the help numbers shown on your screen if you're having any difficulties. In terms of how we'll manage shareholder questions, we'll deal with questions from the floor first here, then move to online questions followed by phone questions. I'll read the online questions to the chairman as they have been written by our shareholders. For shareholders joining us online, the online platform is now open and I would encourage you to submit any questions that you have on the restructure now.
Now with all of those procedural matters out of the way. I'll hand over to your chairman John Mullen.
JOHN MULLEN:
Nice, thanks very much, Nic. So as we mentioned earlier, there's one other resolution to be considered today, which seeks shareholder approval of the proposed scheme of arrangement. So this resolution has been shown on the screen now and further information is provided in the Notice of Scheme meeting and the Scheme booklet itself. Nic outlined at the start of the meeting how you can vote and ask a question. And just a reminder that if you have any difficulty using the online platform or the phone system, please check our virtual meetings guide on our website, or call the Help number shown at the top of your screen. Emma Jones of Link Market Services Limited Telstra's share register is acting as a returning officer in relation to this poll. The results will be available later and can be obtained by visiting the ASX or on our website. We received proxies from over 12,000 shareholders and direct votes from almost another 12,000 shareholders. The proxy and direct voting position is being shown on your screen now.
The four numbers include proxies received and available to be voted by the chairman of the meeting. As indicated in the scheme booklet, I intend to vote all available proxies in favour of the scheme. So I will now take questions from the floor. I believe there are a few... (INAUDIBLE) Pleasure. Yeah. Sorry, a bit us mess up (INAUDIBLE), where is that? (INAUDIBLE) OK. (INAUDIBLE) OK. Alright, cancel all of that start again. When it comes to the end, do you? (INAUDIBLE) OK.
Good afternoon again shareholders. So thanks very much for getting back together after the AGM, both in the room and online. And I hope you've had a chance to get something to eat in the break. It's a pleasure to welcome you to this scheme meeting where we are seeking approval from shareholders on the scheme of arrangement, which is the next step in our proposed corporate restructure. A quorum is present and I formally declare the meeting open. The notice of scheme meeting was distributed with the scheme booklet and sets out the resolution to be considered today.
And I propose to take that notice as read. The vote on the scheme resolution is only the only item of business on today's agenda. And voting on the scheme resolution will be conducted by poll. The poll is now open. Instructions on how to participate in the poll we distributed earlier, but assistance is available anytime should you need it. I'm pleased to again be joined on stage by all of my fellow board members, company secretary Sue Laver and our chief financial officer Michael Ackland. Sarah Lowe from our auditors, Ernst and Young is also here again, along with the senior management team. The corporate restructure was a key component of our T22 strategy, and is also a key component of our T25 strategy announced last year. It’s an important next step in our drive to increase transparency of our infrastructure assets and to improve management focus on our infrastructure and customer businesses, and consequently provides us with more flexibility to create additional value for you, our shareholders. It also recognizes the world has changed significantly on the back of the pandemic.
This is expected to accelerate digitization in the home, the workplace, and economies more broadly, and reinforces the importance and value of the telecommunications infrastructure and connectivity that enables digitization. Delivering on our strategy, including the investments we've made in digitalization and networks, together with the benefits that will flow from the restructure positions us well to capitalize on these changes. The restructure involves the establishment of the Telstra group limited as the head entity of this Telstra Group, and the movement of entities assets and liabilities within the Telstra Group. It is an internal legal reorganization only and will not in itself result in any immediate change to the underlying assets or business activities of the Telstra group. It will provide us with more options and potential to realize additional value for Telstra shareholders from our infrastructure assets. And importantly, if the scheme is approved, there will be no change to the level of your shareholding and you'll receive one Telstra Group Limited share for each of your existing Telstra shares unless you are an eligible foreign shareholder.
Telstra Group Limited shares will have the same dividend and voting rights as Telstra shares. As you would have seen in the scheme booklet, the independent expert that assessed the scheme, Grant Samuel, concluded that the scheme is in the best interest of Telstra shareholders. Telstra directors will all be voting their Telstra shares in favour of the scheme and unanimously recommend you do the same. This recommendation is based on our detailed assessment of the potential advantages and disadvantages of the scheme set out in the scheme booklet you would have received. I'll briefly summarize those advantages and disadvantages now. Firstly, increased transparency of the assets of a customer and infrastructure businesses, allowing management to drive performance and efficiencies, while also providing a clearer picture for shareholders and potential investors to value the business. Increased focus on our customer infrastructure businesses through separate management teams with business-specific strategies supported by dedicated risk teams under a group-wide risk management and compliance framework.It will do this while limiting disruption to the Telstra Group’s businesses, including its arrangements with NBN. This heightened standalone focus is expected to deliver value to Telstra shareholders over time and greater flexibility and optionality to realize value from the Telstra Group's fixed infrastructure assets over time and potential to take advantage of opportunities that may arise to create value for Telstra shareholders.
The disadvantages of the scheme - overall we do not think there are any material disadvantages from what has been proposed. But as explained in the scheme booklet, there are a few costs and risks associated with the proposal. Those costs are the one-off costs to the Telstra Group that are expected to arise if the scheme is implemented. Those costs, excluding stamp duty, are not considered to be material to the Telstra Group. The overall one-off costs associated with the scheme, most of which have already been incurred or will be incurred regardless of whether the scheme is implemented, are expected to be $126 million excluding stamp duty and comprise incremental IT systems and process costs, advisor fees, the cost of the independent expert, and costs associated with the scheme meeting and ongoing additional costs for the Telstra Group that might not otherwise arise. They will mainly be incremental costs in connection with the administration of the new corporate structure and, in aggregate, are not material to the Telstra Group.
The risks associated with implementation of the restructure are summarized in the frequently asked questions, A15 in the scheme booklet, and outlined in more detail in Section 2.9 of the scheme booklet.
Next steps - so should shareholder approval be obtained today, there are a number of next steps and key dates. Firstly, the scheme needs to be approved by the court to become effective. This approval will be sought at the second court hearing which we expect to be held on 19th October 2022. If that approval is received, the last day of trading in Telstra shares on the ASX will be on the 20th of October with the new Telstra Group shares commencing trading on a deferred settlement basis the next day on the 21st of October.
Eligible shareholders will receive their new Telstra Group Limited shares on the top at implementation date, which is expected to be the 31st of October 2022. And the shares will commence trading on a normal basis the next day on the 1st of November.
The final component of the scheme is expected to be implemented on the 1st of January 2023. That's the component that will help separate our infrastructure and customer businesses into separate subsidiaries. However, that component will not result in any change to the number of shares you hold. From a sequencing perspective, implementation of that component is occurring later so that the various transfers occurring in connection with the restructure occur in the correct order.
With that, I will now turn to the formal business of meeting.
Yeah. You can see why you need a new chairman now. So now I do turn to questions I don't need to go through it (INAUDIBLE). Yeah, fantastic. OK. So we will move to questions, please from the room to start with.
That's good didn't look like we... I know we do. No, I don't think we have any there. OK, as I move to online, I know we've got a couple of quite technical ones coming in, I'll do my best to answer a higher level issues. But Lyndall Stoyles if you’d be so very kind, our group general counsel, will be able to answer anything complicated.
NIC MCKECHNIE:
We do have one from the floor.
JOHN MULLEN:
We do, OK. Thank you.
NIC MCKECHNIE:
Chairman, I would like to introduce Peter Star.
SPEAKER:
John, just for clarification, the idea of this was always my it's understanding to create shareholder value. So down the track, if Telstra wanted to float, for argument's sake, the health business we could do it if this is done, correct?
JOHN MULLEN:
The general principle is just yes to increase focus on particularly the infrastructure assets of the business.
SPEAKER:
Yup.
JOHN MULLEN:
And also allow us where we to want to bring external shareholders in or float, as you say, any of the pillars, we could now do that, which we couldn't do before.
SPEAKER:
Correct. So just in relation to the shares that are held by all the people here, does that mean on the new... if this is approved, do they get a one-for-one or do they get... if they hold 500, they get 500 and the new?
JOHN MULLEN:
They get exactly the same, one for one, there will be no change your shares it all intents and purposes are exactly the same shares afterwards, as they were before they just are now in a different company name, a holding company, and it doesn't change anything, it doesn't change any of your entitlements, share price, dividends or anything.
SPEAKER:
And just one final question in relation to the DRP. Is it the board's intention to maintain the DRP?
JOHN MULLEN:
Yes, it is and the DRP will be reinstituted on the new shares as soon as that practical.
SPEAKER:
Thank you, John.
JOHN MULLEN:
Any others? Are we good. Alright, we're good, Nic.
NIC MCKECHNIE:
OK, great. Alright, we'll move to online questions. First question is from Steven Mayne. Does the current DRP really need to be terminated as part of this process? Why can't the current instructions be grandfathered into a new scheme? How many of our 1.25 million shareholders are currently registered for the DRP? And is it true that as of October 20, when the scheme becomes effective, we won't have any shareholders registered for a DRP?
JOHN MULLEN:
Now my understanding is that's not the case with DRP isn't terminated and shareholder elections are grandfathered will apply under the DRP program that will operate in the new company the same as it did before in the old.
NIC MCKECHNIE:
OK, thank you. Next question from Steven Mayne when AMP sold its life business for $3 billion, Australian law did not require it to seek shareholder approval. Same when Suncorp recently announced a proposed $4.9 billion of its banking division to ANZ. Does the chair agree that Australia's shareholder approval regime is bizarre and inconsistent, when we regularly don't get a vote on material transactions, but an internal restructure like this requires a vote that is a waste of everyone's time and money?
JOHN MULLEN:
Well, it's not a waste of everyone's time and money. It's actually a very good move to increase shareholder value and is a sufficiently substantial reorganization of the company that we do require shareholder approval.
NIC MCKECHNIE:
Question from Gavin Smith, is there any net financial gain to the Telstra and shareholder within fin year 2022-2023 or 2023-24 by this conclusion?
JOHN MULLEN:
No, as we said before, it will change nothing. If in the future, we decide to monetize one of the four pillars by bringing another shareholder in whatever. Well, that will be a decision that's taken at the time and that will obviously have impacts on shareholder value or we wouldn't be doing it… but from one year to the next, as you just said, no impact.
NIC MCKECHNIE:
Thanks, John. Question from Theresa Caloiero. Will this scheme restructure open Telstra's assets to be used by our competitors? And how is this a good thing for we shareholders? Will this reduce one of our competitive advantages ie our technology?
JOHN MULLEN:
Again, it changes absolutely nothing assets and our businesses continue to trade exactly the same every day as they did before. It doesn't involve competitors or access to any of our network, it's purely a legal restructure.
NIC MCKECHNIE:
Thanks, John. Question from Stephen Mayne if Telstra had attempted to legally implement this restructure by way of contract, without using a scheme of arrangement, the courts and a shareholder vote, who would have litigated against us to prevent that from happening? Can you cite any examples of other listed companies which have gone through such an expensive process for what is an internal restructure that impacts no third parties in a material way?
JOHN MULLEN:
We obviously looked at all the possible ways of doing this, and there are, as you say, a number of different variants. We felt, after a lot of debate, a lot of internal and external advice, that this was the most effective way of doing it. We also felt it important that something of this size and significance did come to shareholders for a vote. Therefore, the scheme arrangement was the approach that we considered to be the best in the circumstances.
NIC MCKECHNIE:
Another one from Steven Mayne, John, what is so different about the Victorian stamp duty regime that even with exemptions for what is an internal restructure with no assets changing hands, we're still going to be up for at least $18 million dollars in additional stamp duty liabilities payable to the Victorian Government. In what way are all the other states different in their approach to Victoria when it comes to stamp duty?
JOHN MULLEN:
Well, all the states are different. That's unfortunately got nothing to do with Telstra, and there's not in our power to control or influence. The laws are the laws and we have to comply with the state stamp duty rules as they are today.
NIC MCKECHNIE:
Thanks, John. Another question from Gavin Smith. Why would I have not received today's important information by mail by now if I reside within a city of Western Australia? That being before today's vote, did Telstra's mailing occur sufficiently early enough for this important decision? Is the board aware of any other shareholders with this issue? I'm attempting to read the online information supplied now within the last 20 minutes.
JOHN MULLEN:
Well, sorry that you received it late. I'm informed that there's the shareholders were sent the information about the scheme on the 2nd of September which is quite some while ago, so I'm not sure why you, unfortunately, didn't receive it. But I think it sounds like a mail issue rather than a timing issue on our part. Thanks, John, question... I am not aware of anyone else having the same problem as you, as you just mentioned.
SPEAKER:
(INAUDIBLE) Sorry to interrupt, but I am shareholder and I didn't receive it in the post either. No.
JOHN MULLEN:
OK. (INAUDIBLE) I'm sorry, if you didn't, there definitely was mailed to all shareholders.
SPEAKER:
I've just received it five minutes before I came in here. And I don't know anything about this scheme. So I feel quite left out of the picture, if you like, as a shareholder. And I think that there may be other people who are in the same position. Obviously, you don't account for the behaviour of Australia Post. But it doesn't surprise me that I actually haven't received it. But I should have received it with all of the information about the Annual General Meeting. I really think I should have.
JOHN MULLEN:
Now, there's separate communication but also, it has been available online, and you may not have...
SPEAKER:
I didn't not have any notification on at all so I couldn't look online at it. So that man is obviously not alone and not receiving this communication. All of my communications come by post. And of course, you can't guarantee Australia Post. But I wasn't given any notification whatsoever that this was on the board.
JOHN MULLEN:
Obviously, I can't comment I don't know why you didn't whether it was a mailing address error, maybe our records error or maybe it was a post I honestly can't comment, unfortunately.
SPEAKER:
Well, I've just...
JOHN MULLEN:
So I'm very sorry to hear that.
SPEAKER:
I've just received the Annual General Meeting. I haven't moved for 30 years, I've received the Annual General Meeting information. I've also received my dividend statement received recently. So it can't be something to do with my mailing address.
JOHN MULLEN:
All I can say is the vast majority of people have received it, just for the responses we've had from 1,000s and 1,000s, of shareholders. So I don't know why your particular case you didn't. But we also regret that unfortunately, it did.
SPEAKER:
Obviously, it's regrettable. But I would actually like to say that the gentleman who's actually put the issue forward is actually not alone in this. And I dare say that we're both not alone in this. Thank you so much.
JOHN MULLEN:
Thank you.
NIC MCKECHNIE:
Thank you. Thanks, John. Another question from Steven Mayne. It seems very unfair that foreign shareholders are going to be compulsorily sold up as part of this process. How many shareholders is this going to affect? And what is the estimate in terms of the number of shares that we will be forcibly selling?
JOHN MULLEN:
Yeah, no, that was something I was interested in, as well. So I do understand it's absolutely minuscule. The reason it arose is that the laws in some countries prohibit the reissue of shares and the way that we are doing it without certain legal requirements being satisfied in those countries first, but it is an infinitesimally small percentage is less than 0.1% of ineligible foreign shareholders around 2,000 maximum. So it's a tiny, tiny fraction.
NIC MCKECHNIE:
And just for Steven, I did lose the last half of that question, so I will come back to it in a moment, it disappeared off my screen. So we'll come back and make sure that we get to your full question.
Another one from Steven Mayne. Are you disappointed that only 12,000 of the 1.25 million Telstra shareholders voted in this scheme meeting? What sort of marketing campaign did you run to turn out the vote? That said it doesn't really matter, given that 99.2% of voted stock supports the scheme. Could this vote have been held as part of the AGM rather than a separate meeting?
JOHN MULLEN:
Well, I think the fact that 99.2% approved it means that we have communicated it and shareholders have appreciated it. And I think it's a good idea and are supporting it. I think technically, I can't remember exactly why. But no, we needed a separate meeting. But it's all the same meeting, everyone's sitting here at the same time with 20-minute break. So whether it had of been formally part of the AGM or a separate meeting. But it doesn't make any difference. Alright. Though the court ordered it that way.
NIC MCKECHNIE:
Thanks, John. I'm just going to get back to the question from Stephen that I was only able to get halfway through before. So it seems very unfair that foreign shareholders are going to be compulsorily sold up as part of this process. How many shareholders is this going to affect? And what is the estimate in terms of the number of shares that we will be forcibly selling? If you simply issue new Telstra shares to these holders? Do you really think ASIC or some other regulator is going to come after Telstra forcing us to act in such an unfair manner? Does the law need to be changed to be more accommodating of foreign shareholders?
JOHN MULLEN:
No I don't think ASIC will come after us because we've doing everything correctly as we should. We're not talking about Australian laws here we're talking about the laws of other countries and don't think we have any jurisdiction over that.
NIC MCKECHNIE:
OK, thanks, John. There are no more online questions. I'm just going to go to the phone's operator, are there any phone questions?
SPEAKER:
There are no questions on the telephone at this time.
JOHN MULLEN:
Excellent, so I think that wraps us up, Nic. Yeah. So...
NIC MCKECHNIE:
So we have one more online, John. Sorry. Let me just quickly go to that one for you. So we've got a question from Gavin Smith. Will this separation recommence the solo system? Or how will this be handled within Telstra silo system rather sorry, silo. Oh the silo. Silo. Sure, I thought was some technical legal term. No, it's completely unrelated. OK, I think that looks like it from me John.
JOHN MULLEN:
Is it all? Awesome. OK, so thanks, Nic. Thanks, shareholders. So we've now finalized our discussion. If you haven't already done so please now submit your votes online, or complete your voting card. Attendants are carrying ballot boxes again, somewhere in the room. And ballot boxes are also located near the exits. So that finally even with my administrative stuff concludes the business of today's scheme meeting, the poll will remain open for another 10 minutes to enable shareholders to submit their votes. And I now declare the scheme meeting closed subject to finalization of the poll. On behalf of the board, thank you all very much for joining us and for your support today. Thank you.
SPEAKER (VIDEO PLAYED):
Thank you. There's going to be some damaging storms on our West Coast today there could be... No worries, Mr King, I understand. Moving to Newie? Great spot. Yeah, I heard about the storm. I'll get your Wi-Fi sorted. We have a few options for your dad. Let's get your business back online.
The AGM of Telstra Corporation Limited was held virtually (online) on Tuesday 12 October 2021.
The 2020 AGM of Telstra Corporation Limited was held virtually (online) on Tuesday 13 October 2020.
The 2019 AGM of Telstra Corporation Limited was held on Tuesday 15 October 2019 from 9:30am AEDT at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre, 1 Convention Centre Place, South Wharf VIC.
Recording of the 2019 AGM held on Tuesday 15 October 2019 at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre.
(UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYS)
CAROLYN BRIGGS:
Good morning. Good morning, everybody, and welcome to this beautiful part of the city down near the this beautiful centre for the AGM for Telstra. So my name is Carolyn Briggs and I'm the Eldest spokesperson of the Boon Wurrung, which is the language Yaluk-ut Weelam, which means the people of the river. So I'm here to welcome you all. So I've introduced myself, so I know who you are, and I've got to pay my respects to the Telstra board that are out here this morning and also pay my respects to you. I also pay my respects to my Elders and to my Ancestors and to our futures, our younger generation who are coming through. So, and the language afforded to me, it's (SPEAKS AN INDIGENOUS LANGUAGE) That means welcome to our beautiful home, the land (COUGHS) the lands of the two great bays. (UNKNOWN) being Port Phillip Bay and Marin being Western Port Bay. But it's also about this beautiful river that runs flows past us, which is known as the Yarra. But to our people, it was known as the Birrarung.
And it's also when we put ga on the end of it, it's Birrarung-ga, meaning the country of the river. So you're a part of the country of the river. You're getting in a little bit of a history lesson in language. So as a descendant of the First Peoples of Melbourne, we welcome you and the word (SPEAKS INDIGENOUS LANGUAGE) means come with a purpose. The land that we now stand is the traditional country of the (UNKNOWN) clan of the Boon Wurrung language group. The Boon Wurrung people were part of a much larger nation, or confederacy, known as the eastern colon. Colon means mankind. The Boon Wurrung and the eastern colon have a unique history and culture, and we are pleased to be able to celebrate that history and heritage with you today. Just that word (SPEAKS INDIGENOUS LANGUAGE), come, ask the common. What is your intention for coming? It is to be a part of this AGM the 2019. Traditionally, the Boon Wurrung and the other clans of the (UNKNOWN) nation would meet just like you to celebrate, to trade.
These celebrations were held each month to celebrate the coming of the new full moon. The descendants of the Boon Wurrung in the eastern colon have continued to take an active and progressive approach to the leadership and protection of our values. This is one of this one, this is one more way that we can acknowledge and celebrate our shared indigenous history and heritage. In traditional society of the eastern colon, we were committed to the maintenance of our society by valuing the importance of learning, showing respect, celebrating life and honouring the sacred ground. This importance of learning was a transmission of knowledge and understanding that ensured our culture survived. This commitment to learning has been a part of every generation since time began. And that's one of the reasons why we are still strong today. We believe that you must respect the past in order to understand its futures. And according and these are the things that have maintained our guiding principles for our life ways.
Showing respect. In our traditions, visitors are always welcome. But but they are required to show respects to the (UNKNOWN) the laws of the land. This is the same way we show respect to each other's diversities, cultures, religious or spiritual beliefs today, and we are here to celebrate the 2019 Telstra AGM. This is also a celebration of life. The arrival of new children, the coming of the six seasons, the visiting of the neighbouring clans was very much an important part of our traditional life. We talk about respecting sacred ground. We should all acknowledge the sacred ground on which we stand, and Melbourne is a host to many people from many different nations, and we still call upon them to respect sacred ground by understanding its history and heritage of the first people of the eastern colon. And today is my hope that we can all take pride in our shared history and celebrate the strength of this great country of ours. And according to our traditions, our lands will always be protected by our creator, Bunjil who travels as an eagle and (UNKNOWN) who protects our waterways travels as a crow.
Bunjil, asked of First Peoples to ask all visitors to make a number of commitments, one not to harm the (UNKNOWN) lands, not to harm our knees, our waterways and particularly not harm Bunjil's children. And if you accept these laws or these dumb bars, this is about allowing you to travel through our many landscapes in safety. And this is one way we do this by your commitment is through the exchange of a small bow dipped in the water of the land. So once again, (SPEAKS INDIGENOUS LANGUAGE). I wish you well in your endeavours with the new AGM for this year. So let's celebrate, (SPEAKS INDIGENOUS LANGUAGE) and the celebration. I want you to all say (SPEAKS INDIGENOUS LANGUAGE). You can do a bit louder. You know, because you're articulating 2,000 generations of say the word come. What's your purpose for coming? Thank you. (SPEAKS INDIGENOUS LANGUAGE). I wish you well. (VIDEO PLAYS)
SPEAKER:
It's always been about people about bringing us closer together, connecting us and the communities where a part of. Making sure each and every one of us gets to experience the best technology on the best network. Because in the right hands, we know our network has the power to change things, to help us take care of each other, get back on our feet, build up the next generation and connect our businesses with the rest of the world. No matter who you are or where you live, with the power of connection, everyone can live better, more fulfilling lives. Everyone can thrive. (VIDEO ENDS)
JOHN MULLEN:
Great. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. My name is John Mullen, and it's my pleasure to welcome you this morning to Telstra's 2019 Annual General Meeting. All of the directors are here, including your Chief Executive Officer Andy Penn, and I join them in offering you a very warm welcome this morning. Thank you also to Auntie Carolyn for the earlier welcome to country. Today's meeting is being webcast, so welcome also to those shareholders joining us online. And with a quorum present, I would like to formally declare today's meeting open. The notice of meeting was distributed earlier and that's about the business and the resolutions to be considered today. So I propose to take that notice as read. There are a number of items of business on the agenda today, all of which are shown on the screen behind me. Items three to five-set out resolutions to be voted on today. Item six is a conditional item and any vote cast on it will be of no effect unless we receive what is known as a second strike on the remuneration report.
To assist with the efficient conduct of the meeting, I declare the resolutions on items three to six now properly before the meeting. Voting on items three, four and five and if required, item six will be conducted by poll and that poll is now open. If for any reason any shareholder wants to leave the meeting early, you can still vote by completing your voting card and placing it in one of the ballot boxes near the exits. I'd like to now formally introduce the colleagues with me here today. With me on stage or Andy Penn our Chief Executive Officer,, Sue Laver a company secretary. Vicki Brady, chief financial officer and my fellow members of the board. And can I particularly welcome new director Eelco Blok, who has been nominated by the Board for election at today's meeting. I would also like to introduce Andrew Price from our auditors, (UNKNOWN). I can see him I see over there. Andrew's available. if shareholders have any questions about the audit or the audit process. So let me now turn to Telstra's activities and performance during the 2019 financial year.
This year has been one of the most important years in Telstra's history. And why did I say that? I say that because 2019 was the year when we commenced a T22 strategy to transform Telstra for the future. A year in which we completed our nearly $3 billion strategic investment program that was needed to create the types of networks we will need in the future and to completely digitize our business. And a year in which, as an industry, you pass the halfway mark in the migration to the NBN. I don't want to appear overly dramatic, but it is our belief that the T22 transformation that Telstra is undertaking today is the most radical and ambitious being undertaken by any telecommunications company in the world today, and we have made significant progress already. And Telstra today is a very different, much simpler and more customer-focused organisation than we were just a year ago. (UNKNOWN) will give you more detail shortly. But let me just try and give you a few examples. Firstly, we have produced more than 1800 consumer and small business plans to just 20 in-market plans.
We've done away with locking contracts on all new consumer and small business, fixed and mobile plans. We've eliminated excess data charges in Australia on all our new mobile plans. And since 2016, the number of calls coming into our contact centres has fallen by more than 15 million per year, and our goal is to reduce them by another 16million by 2022, all driven by a better customer experience. That will be a reduction of over two-thirds of the calls coming into Telstra, or 31 million calls in total. And the number of trucks that we needed to dispatch to repair faults with 900,000 fewer than last year. And we've achieved around 1.2 billion of annual cost reduction since FY16, with a further target of another 630 million this year. We are on track to achieve our target of an annual $2.5 billion reduction in underlying fixed costs by fiscal year 22. Now, in this regard, we announced around 6000 direct employee row reductions this year, and that, of course, is a source of great concern at every employee as a person with a family with hopes and aspirations.
And we must never forget the human dimension in these decisions. However, shareholders should be aware that one of the biggest drivers of this is the transfer of Telstra's fixed line business back to government ownership. So while we've lost 6,000 employees NBN now employees, 6,400 employees and many thousands of contractors in addition. So overall employment has actually risen in the industry. And clearly, it's simply not possible to maintain all those employees, and the part of the business that they worked in has been transferred to another entity. Now, our industry is changing in an extraordinary pace, and it will never be the same again. And if we don't adapt, we will fail. No business is too big to fail today if it doesn't reinvent itself on a continual basis. So you're witnessing the greatest transformation that Telstra has ever undertaken way beyond anything that we have tried to do before. A couple of years ago, Andy Penn said that Telstra was becoming a technology company. It was a predictable coterie of critics who said that Telstra was aspiring to be another Google or Facebook, which of course, was not at all what he meant.
But Andy was absolutely right. Like other telcos, the world over Telstra has come from a world of monopoly or semi monopoly telephone operations, originally just connecting person to person with voice communication. But that world has gone forever, and our industry today is exploding into a world of cloud computing, machine learning, artificial intelligence, internet of Things, autonomous vehicles, big data, drones, satellite technologies and many, many more. This is the new technological world, and the old world is not coming back. And while we may not like it, the days of Telstra's high legacy margins and 100% dividend payout ratio are not coming back, either. So let me now turn to Telstra's performance during the year. Firstly, our results were in line with guidance and with market expectations. We delivered what we said we would deliver. However, as expected and previously flagged, our results also reflected current market realities, including the impact of the NBN and intense competition.
We reported total revenue of 27.8 billion, EBITDA of 8 billion and net profit after tax of $2.1 billion. A major reason for the decline in the profit compared to last year was the impact of the NBN, which represented some 600 million of negative recurring EBITDA headwind during the year. Combined with a total interim dividend paid in February 2019, shareholders will receive a total dividend of 16 cents per share fully franked for FY19, which will be returning $1.9 billion to shareholders. Now, what is particularly significant about our results this year, however, is that they indicate an inflection point for the business. The clearest view of the future financial performance of our business is one that excludes the NBN headwind. And in this respect, we expect fiscal year 20 to be a pivotal year for us financially as momentum in our underlying business is expected to deliver up to $500 million of growth, excluding those NBN headwinds. This is a significant improvement on the decline of around 400 million in fiscal year 19.
2019 was also the year in which we again demonstrated clear network leadership. We were the first operator in Australia and in fact amongst the first in the world to launch 5G, the next generation of mobile telecommunications technology. 5G is enabling extraordinary new developments and opportunities and new fields such as those that I mentioned, Internet of Things, machine learning, artificial intelligence and so on. We continue to expand on network, and Telstra's mobile coverage footprint now stretches out to more than two and a half million square kilometres, vastly more than any other mobile network in Australia. And our coverage extends to 99.5% of the Australian population. We are really proud of this, and our commitment remains to work cooperatively with governments and with other stakeholders to continue to do our absolute best to bridge the gap between metro and rural areas better than anyone else. And in this regard, just how important actually is Telstra to Australia and to Australians?
Well, we now provide over 23 million customer services, including more than 18 million domestic mobile retail customer services, 3.7 million retail bundles and standalone fixed data services and 1.4 million standalone voice services. We estimate that up to 95% of Australians use Telstra in some way on a regular basis, even if they don't realise it. An example If you are on a competitors network and you do a Google search, your request likely goes from your phone via a Telstra submarine cable to Google in the US and back again. If you use an ATM or you pay for something by EFTPOS or you book a taxi or an airline ticket, chances are your bank or other organisation will be using Telstra to provide the service. 65 million voice calls are made every day on our fixed and mobile networks and more than 33 petabytes of data received and sent. Submarine cables linking us to the outside world are long enough to encircle the planet 10 times. We offer voice, data and video of a mobile fixed NBN, wide band, narrowband and other networks from machine to machine transmission.
Now, this complex array of technologies works exceptionally well and is exceptionally reliable. Yet with this scale of customer interaction, only one small part of this complex system needs to go wrong, and that can equate to thousands and thousands of unsatisfactory experiences for customers. As chairman, I receive a lot of complaints and I respond to every one of them because that is my job and they disappoint me every time. When I analyse those complaints, they often relate to the systems that we're using, legacy systems that are difficult to navigate, systems that are now being removed or improved as part of T22. Despite the best of intentions, there's always human error where maybe a customer's billing is wrong. Maybe the technician didn't come the time promised. Maybe the NBN connection doesn't work, and NBN blames Telstra, and Telstra blames the NBN and so on. As I mentioned before, we receive about half a million calls per week, mostly to address relatively minor but frustrating issues.
And despite the substantial reduction we have achieved in these complaints and calls, we still have a long way to go and I feel this frustration keenly, as do my fellow directors and Telstra's employees, especially as they work so hard every day to improve things. This then is why Telstra's T22 strategy to radically simplify and streamline the business and digitise our interactions with customers the greatest extent possible is so critically important. Now let me make a few comments about the NBN. The creation of the NBN 10 years ago has had a seminal effect on our industry and on Australia. And it's always easier to comment with the benefit of hindsight, I know, but it is my view that over the last 10 years, private-sector competition between strong players such as Telstra, Optus, TPG and others was always going to build 100 megabit broadband access and speed to the majority of the population in Australia and an ongoing competitive landscape and at no cost whatsoever to the taxpayer.
Governments could then have decided how much subsidy they were willing to provide the industry to extend this coverage to regional and rural areas where private sector economics were unattractive. This would all have been at a fraction of the tele cost of today's NBN. Instead, however, in the end, in the NBN, we have created a state-owned monopoly that's going to cost the country more than $50 billion. This said, however, we got here, and Telstra too must be a part of the blame for this due to its recalcitrance in helping government at the time. But whether we like it or not, the NBN is here to stay. And today it is in Telstra's interest, it's an industry's interests and the country's interest to do all we can to make the NBN successful. And Telstra is unequivocally trying to play its part in achieving this.
SPEAKER:
However, that decision 10 years ago has left a number of substantive challenges for the industry and Australia to solve. In the 12 years since the NBN project was announced and the 10 years old since the NBN itself was formed, Australia's mobile industry has consistently ranked amongst the best in the world. In August this year, the Speed Test Global Index rated Australia as having the second fastest mobile networks in the world after South Korea. However, in the same test, Australia's fixed broadband industry ranked 58th fastest in the world behind countries like Moldova, Belarus, Panama and Andorra. Financially, the impact on all fixed broadband providers has been significant, despite some compensation paid to those operators whose fixed line businesses have been nationalised. In Telstra's case we estimate that we have now absorbed around 50% of the economic headwind that the NBN creates for us, or about $1.7 billion on an annualised basis, with more than 60% of Australia's homes now connected.
Telstra has in part being compensated by the government for this, of course, the majority of which is being returned to shareholders. But after the end of the NBN rollout, Telstra will be worse off by more than $3 billion per year into the future. The impact on the bottom line, and therefore EPS from which we pay dividends is even greater and up to 50% reduction net profit after tax, resulting in an inevitable flow through to dividends and share price. There are few precedents in corporate Australia for a challenge of this magnitude and there's no magic solution to make up for the loss of up to half of the company's net profit. But we are not sitting on our hands. Our T22 program is a radical and ambitious initiative to fundamentally restructure Telstra to enable us to respond rapidly to this changing environment and to continue to lead the Australian telco market. Then there have been claims by some that the payments NBN makes to Telstra for infrastructure access are the reason why NBN's wholesale prices are so high.
In fact, as the industry well knows, exactly the opposite is true. These payments to Telstra have actually helped keep the cost of the NBN down. By the NBN's own admission, without access to Telstra's very extensive network of exchanges, fibre, ducts, pits and pipes, the NBN would have had to build all this infrastructure from scratch at a much higher cost and over a much longer period. Then another tropical matter which is becoming problematic is the question of the NBN's starting to sell directly to enterprise customers. Now, the original mandate for the NBN was that the NBN would be wholesale provider only and would not favour or discriminate between retail service providers or RSPs. It certainly wasn't envisaged that NBN Co would negotiate contracts directly with customers and encourage them to seek special deals from certain RSPs. That, however, is what we are seeing today. Instead of remaining a wholesaler, the NBN is now going outside this mandate and is targeting our customers directly.
As one of our competitors clearly noted recently, the reasons why the industry objected to this are three. Firstly, reciprocity. It seems inequitable that the NBN can now move outside its mandate and sell directly to our customers. But RSPs in the industry have to stay within their mandate and cannot sell to the NBN's own protected market in return due to regulations which prevent retail providers investing in fixed line infrastructure to provide consumer services. Secondly, the original intent of the NBN was to bring high speed internet a competitive pricing to those without such access. It seems a waste of collective resources to be delaying investment in the consumer rollout to people yet to be connected and instead be focusing investment and the enterprise market where the NBN is duplicating existing high speed fibre for no service or speed advantage. And thirdly, the NBN's government ownership gives it a very significant cost of capital advantage over the private sector, which is being used to its competitive advantage.
Now, we understand that maximising the financial return of the NBN is important, however, for the NBN to be allowed to move outside its mandate and to achieve this, but reciprocal competition from RSPs remains restricted seems inequitable. There's very little doubt in my mind that were the NBN open to competition, wholesale broadband prices in Australia would fall materially. Now, let me be clear, we are not recommending that the nation's policy settings be changed, but we are saying that if the policy settings are not to change, then both sides should respect their original mandates. And lastly, may I try to make another important comment on affordability, affordability of the project itself and affordability of retail broadband services. You would have seen that Telstra, along with much of the rest of the industry, has been recommending that the NBN reduces wholesale broadband prices. This has been criticised by some as being self-serving, and while of course this would benefit Telstra, it would also benefit all the rest of the industry and all of the actual uses of broadband since without a drop in wholesale pricing, the inevitable outcome will be higher retail prices.
Dismissing the industry's suggestion as whingeing may make good media headlines, but this avoids Australia facing into the real ends issue here for both the industry and for the country. When Telstra was a regulated wholesale provider to the industry, Telstra charged on average about $20 per user per month. The NBN is now charging some $44 per month on average, and the NBN states its ambition is to get that up to $49 by fiscal year 23. As a very broad generalisation, a retail service providers average internal cost is in some 12 to $18 on top, plus approximately another six to eight for the (UNKNOWN) cost to connect. So, this gives an all in cost for an RSP to resell the NBN of over $70 per month. Market prices to the consumer, however, are averaging below $70 per month, excluding GST. Now, clearly, losing money is unsustainable for all 180 odd RSPs out there, and this is why we have already seen some companies starting to withdraw from reselling the NBN. In addition, these economics are leaving many companies to invest in 5G fixed wireless and other technological solutions to allow them to offer competitive broadband without using the NBN at all, which just makes the situation even worse.
Ironically, it's actually beckoning in the interests of those competitors that are embracing these new technologies that NBN's prices remain high, so the alternative technologies become more attractive. And bottom line of this is that Australia already has some of the highest wholesale broadband pricing in the world. And if this trend continues, over time most resellers of the NBN will withdraw, or they will go broke. The downside of this, in turn, will be fewer service providers and, ultimately, higher broadband prices to the consumer. Alternatively, a reduction in the wholesale price of the NBN would mean that reselling the NBN would be profitable for all RSPs, resulting in a dynamic and competitive broadband industry and retail prices would be kept materially lower. Now, Telstra will compete either way, but surely a reduction in the wholesale price, a competitive market and lower prices for consumers has to be a better outcome than a high priced oligopoly, both for the industry and for Australia.
To this end, we welcome the announcement yesterday by the ACCC that it's launching an inquiry into NBN pricing from an affordability perspective. Now, let me just close this out by saying, by stressing, here that I'm in no way criticising the leadership of the NBN. To the contrary, they are capable and professional people with whom we have a constructive and engaged relationship and whom we respect. These challenges are not of their making either, as they too have to work with the cards they have been dealt and they are doing their very best in difficult circumstances. But this is not just an NBN or a Telstra problem, it is a problem for the whole of Australia to resolve, government, industry and the NBN together. So, turning now to the changes this year in Telstra's leadership. Andy will talk about his management team shortly, but we continue to completely reshape our board to put in place the right balance of experience, including global telecommunications experience, technical expertise and fresh thinking.
I may be biased, but with a couple of new appointments still to come, I think that we're building one of the strongest boards in Australia and a board fit for purpose to help steer Telstra through these unprecedented times. You will hear shortly from the director standing for election, but can I again firstly welcome Eelco Blok. Eelco brings more than 30 years experience at the Netherlands leading landline and mobile telecommunications company, KPN, and he is an outstanding addition to our board. Then directors will be aware that two current directors, Craig Dunn and Nora Scheinkestel, are also eligible for re-election. Both are highly valued and respected members of our board, and both have made huge contributions to Telstra. Let me start with Craig Dunn. Craig is an outstanding director who joined our board in 2016. He is the current chairman of the Audit and Risk Committee and a member of the Nomination Committee. In my view, Craig is one of the best public company directors in the country.
We are aware that there has been commentary around Craig's association with the AMP, where he was CEO more than six years ago. However, it is important to note that at no time whatsoever has Craig ever been accused of anything improper himself. All I can say as chair is that Craig is an extremely valuable director with exceptional skills in the areas of finance, risk and general board supervision, and the board supports his re-election 100%. Were he not to be re-elected, it would be a great loss to Telstra, and I therefore ask you too vote in favour of his re-election. Let me then also comment briefly on the other director standing for re-election today, Nora Scheinkestel. Nora is a member of the board's Audit and Risk Committee, Nomination Committee and Remuneration Committee, and previously she was chairman of the Audit and Risk Committee from 2012 to 2019. If successful, this will be Nora's fourth three year term. In accordance with our board tenure principles where a non-executive director is approaching the end of their third three year term, a more formal review of their continuing directorship takes place, including considering length of service when making an assessment of the director's independence.
Nora is simply an outstanding director and brings considerable skill, wisdom and experience to our board. And in particular, Nora has a deep corporate memory, including being involved in the NBN transaction from the very beginning. With a number of directors only being recently appointed, this continuity of key corporate knowledge is critically important to us. So, when the board considered Nora's tenure, independence and contribution, it had no hesitation in unanimously recommending she remain a member of the Telstra board. I hope that you too will support her re-election. This brings me then to the issue of executive remuneration and items four, five and potentially six on today's agenda. Shareholders will recall that last year significant concerns were raised around the remuneration report by proxy advisers and others, meaning that a substantial number of shareholders did not approve the report. This gave us what is termed a first strike, and this is deeply disappointing both to me and to my board colleagues.
We were disappointed because the Telstra board takes this responsibility incredibly seriously. We spent a huge amount of time really trying to get the balance right between protecting shareholders interests and not overpaying executives, while at the same time motivating, incentivising and retaining the best management talent that we can. This is particularly the case where, as in our situation, market dynamics, including ones outside management's control, have been challenging and shareholder returns have not always been able to be at the level that we would have hoped for. But the fact is is Telstra is a $42 billion market cap company with around 30,000 employees, 1.3 million shareholders, and we operate a leading edge of telecommunications markets here in Australia and around the world. We are operating in times of great challenge and volatility, and the future of the company depends on our implementing one of the world's largest and most complex transformation strategies within a tight timeframe.
And in that environment first class leadership could not be more critical, and attracting, retaining and motivating high calibre executives depends on a number of things. One of course of which is remuneration. Overseas and Australian executives will simply not leave well-paid jobs elsewhere to join Telstra unless we have a competitive remuneration strategy. This year, Telstra's remuneration committee and the rest of the board again spent a significant amount of time trying to get the structure right. We consulted extensively, we listened, we worked, and we reworked our executive compensation scheme to try to find the best balance. The plan for a FY20, therefore, includes a number of material changes to try to better align with the creation of sustainable long term shareholder value. We have reduced maximum potential remuneration. We've increased the equity versus cash ratio. We have extended vesting for restricted shares. We've expanded the clawback provisions on our equity terms and a number of other measures.
And we strongly believe that these changes strike the right balance between protecting shareholder interests, not overpaying executives, but at the same time motivating, incentivising and retaining talented leaders. And we really, really hope that shareholders will agree. I'm on the record as saying that some executive remuneration in Australia and especially overseas, has been too high in the past, and there's no doubt that this has damaged the reputation of big business around the world. However, executive remuneration in Telstra has been progressively trending down. I absolutely do not think that this is the case in Telstra today. Indeed, I would like to particularly stress how important it is to reward and motivate management in difficult times, even more so perhaps than in good times. It's a natural reaction for shareholders who have seen their shares reduced in value to be disappointed and to question whether executives are feeling the same pain as well. However, the share price cannot be the only metric by which we evaluate management performance.
External factors can mean that you can have a reduction in the share price despite outstanding management performance, just as you can have increased share price despite mediocre management performance. If in the end the only criterion is the share price itself, then why even bother with the complicated remuneration structures that we have? Simply pay the executive a fixed amount and do away with a whole industry that has grown up around remuneration, including proxy advisers and company remuneration committees that spend an inordinate amount of time trying to get remuneration right. But if you want to pay on performance, then you have to look at a lot more than just the share price to judge good or poor management performance and really understand the drivers inside the business. For Telstra the reality is that external factors, including the impact of the NBN headwinds I mentioned earlier, are very substantial drivers of our company's performance, and this would have been far worse if management had not done such an excellent job in this environment.
We genuinely believe that Telstra's management has performed excellently this year, and we are fortunate that the last 12 months has also seen Telstra's share price rise materially and outperform the market. This has led to a well-earned increase in compensation for the team and for our chief executive, Andy Penn. His actual pay increased by 34% this year, but the context for this is really important to understand. The remuneration that Andy has received actually fell by almost 50% over the previous two years because Telstra was under pressure from a number of external factors over which Andy had little control, including the impact of the NBN headwinds that I mentioned earlier. So, even with a rise this year, therefore, the total remuneration that he received is still more than 20% below where he was three years ago. And ultimately, because Andy received such a significant portion of his total remuneration in the form of shares, we are comfortable that his remuneration is directly tied to Telstra's share price performance, and it mirrors shareholders own experience.
For all of that, however, executive remuneration continues to challenge the board, and we continue to search for solutions that satisfy everybody. In the end, all we can do is to diligently and transparently set targets for management that we think are ambitious and will deliver lasting value to shareholders despite the market environment. And we believe that that is what we have done this year. But we must also never forget that incentive schemes are designed to be an incentive, not a disincentive. Chairs and directors may come and go, but in the end, the single greatest contributor to shareholder value in the business is a talented and motivated management team. When I was younger, almost every executive aspired to be the CEO of a big, public company. Today, there's a real risk that the media scrutiny, the populist criticism and governance challenges, are starting to lead talented executives to look for alternative career paths, such as private equity as an example, where they can build their careers out of the spotlight.
So, there's no doubt transparency and accountability are, of course, good things, but we need to be very careful that the pendulum does not swing too far and we lose top talent, as this ultimately will only be to the detriment of shareholders. Andy is a strong leader and has assembled a very talented and high performing management team to steer Telstra through these unprecedented times. Rewarding Andy and his team appropriately for their efforts is critical and in this regard I cannot apologise for continuing to do what we believe is the right thing for the company and the right thing for shareholders in the long term. So, let me close then by touching on Telstra's role in society more broadly. In the past year, the Australian corporate landscape has undergone a seismic readjustment, particularly in the wake of the recent banking royal commission. Customers, regulators, investors and the community at large have very publicly reminded large organisations of the value that they place on companies being transparent, ethical and accountable in everything they do.
An important part of that is how companies conduct themselves and the contribution that they make to the communities of which they are part. That is a good thing, and Telstra can be very proud of its record in this respect, especially regarding the important role we continue to play in connecting and supporting communities, including in regional and remote areas and in serving the needs of our customers in vulnerable circumstances. As digital technologies play an increasingly central role in our world, there remains a significant gap between those who are connected and those who are not. And to bridge that gap, this year we helped around one million customers living in vulnerable circumstances to stay connected, including providing assistance for people on low incomes impacted by domestic or family violence or living with a disability. We also reached more than 30,000 people through our digital capability programs and created more than $110 million of value through our social investment programs.
Through the Telstra Foundation we also support digital learning experiences in schools, public libraries and remote indigenous communities. No other telecommunications company in Australia and, in fact, few other businesses full stop, can match Telstra for its involvement in and positive impact on the communities in which we operate. This year, we also achieved 40% reduction in our carbon emissions intensity, and we collected 15.5 tonnes of mobile phones from our customers for recycling. It is an ongoing source of enormous organisational pride for all of us. So, to sum up then, 2019 was an incredibly important year for Telstra, a year in which we met guidance and market expectations. Where we maintained or grew market share in key areas and where we built significant early momentum behind our ambitious T22 strategy. The NBN is what it is and we have to work with us, but in the end, The end of the nbn rollout is actually insight. After which, looking at Telstra's performance and progress will become much clearer again.
T22 is positioning us for success at a time when telecommunications networks are amongst the most important pieces of infrastructure in the world. A time when the demand for connectivity has never been greater. And to succeed in this new world, we need to find ways to translate demand into revenue and profit to completely reinvent Telstra as a new, digitally-enabled business, able not just to compete but to win. And that is exactly what we are doing. We're still closer to the start of T22 than the finish, but we are confident that we're moving at speed and creating sustained value for our customers, our shareholders, and our employees. You can be confident that you have shares and not just the best telco in Australia, but one that is respected around the world, and we're all working extremely hard to make the company even better still. Finally, and before I invite Andy to address you, let me sincerely thank you our shareholders for your patience and your support during the year. Let me also thank our customers for their ongoing support, as without them, there would be no Telstra.
And lastly, but by no means least, let me also thank every Telstra staff member. The board greatly appreciates all that you do, and I believe so too do our shareholders. Thank you for listening. And now let me introduce our Chief Executive Officer, Andy Penn, and invite him to address the meeting. Thank you. (APPLAUSE)
ANDY PENN:
Well, thank you very much, chairman, and good morning, everybody, thank you all for joining us here today, particularly including those who have joined us online. We do very much value this opportunity to meet with shareholders and to keep you across the many incredible opportunities that face your company in the future. We also welcome, of course, the opportunity to hear your comments and your feedback, and to address any of the questions that you may have. In my presentation this morning, I'd like to cover four things. Firstly, and building on the chairman's comments earlier, I will provide an overview why this year has become such a pivotal year for your company. Secondly, I will comment further on the progress we are making in transforming your company through a T22 strategy. Thirdly, I want to explain why telecommunication networks will have such a significant influence on the success of our economy and our nation over the next decade and why 5G is absolutely central to this. And finally, I will confirm our guidance for the 2020 financial year.
The chairman has already taken you through our financial results for the year, but I wanted to share why I believe 2019 was such a pivotal year. Notwithstanding the intense competitive environment and the challenging structural dynamics of the industry, including the nbn. 2019, was the year in which we believe we have started to see the turning point in the fortunes of the company from the changes that we are making. 2019 was the year in which we completed the Strategic Investment Program, which we announced in 2016. Whilst we will obviously continue to make investments, we are now doing so on a business as usual basis. 2019 is the year in which, as you heard from the chairman, we passed the halfway mark on the nbn. And 2019, was also the year in which we again demonstrated a clear telecommunications network leadership by being the first operator in Australia and among the first globally to launch 5G, the next generation of mobile telecommunications technology. 5G is clearly going to be important for Telstra's growth in the future, but it's also going to be important for Australia's future, and I will explain why that is the case in a moment.
Finally, 2019 was also the year in which we commenced the T22 strategy to radically simplify our products and services, improve the digital experience for our customers, establish Telstra InfraCo as a separate business unit, simplify how we work, reduce their cost base, and improve our portfolio management. In short, then 2019 was a year in which we made very significant progress in our program to make Telstra's challenges of today and to put us in the best possible position for the future. Telstra today is already a very different, much simpler company, a more focused customer organisation than we were a year ago. Importantly, though, we are well-positioned for the era into which we are about to head the 2020's. Let me now comment, therefore, on the progress this year on the many initiatives under T22. T22 is built fundamentally around four pillars and two critical enablers, building the networks for the future and digitising our business. We have made a very strong start, so let me cover some of the highlights.
Firstly, under pillar one to radically simplify our product offerings, eliminate customer pain points, and create all-digital experiences. We have completely overhauled and simplified our product range, reducing more than 1,800 consumer and small business plans to just 20, creating simpler, more flexible ways for customers to choose the best value connectivity set devices for them. During the year, Telstra became the first telco in Australia to introduce no lock-in plans across both fixed and mobile. We also launched our build-your-own mobile plans to give our customers freedom and flexibility and removed excess data charges on all-new mobile plans. As the chairman said earlier, one of the most pleasing measures of the progress we have made was a 22% reduction in the number of calls coming into our call centres from our consumer and small business customers during the year. We've also significantly improved our online experience, including refreshing the Telstra 24 by seven app and our digital experience now accounts for more than 53% of all service transactions, including account management, prepaid product, and billing-related inquiries.
As well as flexibility, simplicity, and choice, our customers also though want to be rewarded and recognized for their loyalty towards Telstra. And in response to this, this year, we launched Telstra Plus, a program offering customers the opportunity to earn rewards, discounts on new technology, as well as bonus entertainment, and much more. Our support for our small business customers was also improved this year, with no locking contracts, and excess data charges removed on new mobile and tablet plans, as well as more dedicated support services. This includes account management for all small business customers for a new 24-7 tech support service where we have trained 1,000s of dedicated small business specialists. Last month, we also launched Telstra Purple Australia's largest Australian owned technology services business. Telstra Purple brings together Telstra's enterprise business technology service capabilities. It consists of 1,500 certified experts in network, security, cloud collaboration, mobility, software, data analytics, and design.
Turning then to pillar two, the creation of Telstra InfraCo. Telstra InfraCo now controls assets with a book value of more than $11 billion and it is responsible for key network assets to Telstra, including data centres and exchanges, most of our fibre network, the residual copper and HFC networks not transferred to the nbn, the international subsea cables that the chairman mentioned poles, ducts, and pipes. Let me take a moment, though, to remind shareholders the rationale for setting up Telstra InfraCo, which is threefold. Firstly, we're conscious that the investment community increasingly considers infrastructure assets differently from operating businesses. Therefore, InfraCo provides a greater degree of transparency for our shareholders on the very significant infrastructure assets that we own. Secondly, by housing our infrastructure assets in a separate standalone business unit. This creates and facilitates stronger management focus on maximising the value of these assets. And thirdly, to create optionality for the future, particularly for when the nbn might be privatised, given that this is the stated policy of both sides of government.
And encouragingly, we are making good progress on all of these objectives. The third pillar of T22 is on simplifying our structure and ways of working. A critical part of transforming Telstra for the future is changing how we work to allow our people to collaborate more easily so that they can deliver better, faster outcomes for our customers. The chairman has described earlier the changes that we are making in our workforce and in particular, the numbers of people that are impacted. And that is why we are continuing to make sure that we support those people through up to $50 million transition program, which provides a range of services for those that are moving into new roles. The full strategic pillar is delivering an industry-leading cost reduction program and portfolio management. We accelerated our cost program in the second half of 2019 and into 2020, and we remain on track to reach our target of reducing our annualized fixed costs by 2.5 billion by 2022. The other aspect of pillar four is focused on actively managing our portfolio to monetize up to $2 billion in assets.
In this regard, throughout the year, we restructured Telstra Ventures, we exited Ooyala, and more recently we sold the Edison Exchange in Brisbane's CBD, as well as entering into an agreement to sell three international data centres. We also recently announced the establishment and part sale of an unlisted property trust to own 37 of Telstra's exchanges, including existing properties. As part of this transaction, Charter Hall-led consortium has acquired a 49% stake in the new trust for $700 million. This reflects a capitalization rate of 4.4% and values the entire property trust at more than 1.4 billion. So, combined the recent changes to Telstra ventures, the sale of the Edison Exchange and the other transactions that I have mentioned bring the total value of assets monetized as part of T22 to around a billion dollars. T22 is built on the foundation provided by our strategic investment program that we announced in 2016. We have now completed this program having invested $2.6 billion digitizing the business and building the networks of the future.
But let me be clear, without these investments, the initiatives that we are undertaking within our T22 program would just not have been possible. The digitization aspect of the program has seen our customer management, our provisioning, our billing HR, and many other of our computer systems upgraded, digitised, and taken to the cloud as key enablers of the many customer experience improvements that we are delivering. As an example, the announced enhanced functionality on our Salesforce customer management system has helped increase our sales pipeline over the past year. We also introduced Telstra Connect as a single digital channel for business-to-business-customer interactions. Bringing together more than 50 active portals that we previously had. Ongoing investment in our network has also been very important and a foundation for our T22 program. This is about building the networks for the future, including launching 5G this year. I will talk more about 5G in a moment, but in addition to 5G, we also added more than 250 new mobile sites and upgraded a further 1,200 including extending our 4G coverage even further.
As the chairman have mentioned, we now have mobile coverage to 2.5 million square kilometres of Australia's landmass. At least 1 million square kilometres than any other mobile network operator in Australia. Service reliability and resilience also (UNKNOWN) critical factors for our mobile customers and a key network differentiator for Telstra. Since 2016, customer impact hours from outages have been reduced 76% as a consequence of the ongoing improvements that we have been making. We also continue to lead the market in key speed benchmarks. Independent third party recognition for the speed and quality of our network this year included winning the P3 and systemic network surveys for Australia's best mobile network and the Netflix Speed Index for the last 18 months in a row. Perhaps the most significant network achievement this year, however, was launching 5G. Telstra is a global leader in 5G and was the first to introduce it here. The rollout is ongoing and is currently focused on CBD locations and selected regional centres, where more than 4 billion people work, live or visit every single day.
We have already enabled more than 350 sites and base stations around the country in ten cities. We will increase this to more than 800 by the end of the calendar year, and we expect 5G coverage to increase almost fivefold over the next 12 months. As a further 35 Australian cities and major towns are connected. 10s of 1,000s of customers are already enjoying 5G today. In fact, our customers that currently have a 5G device are spending around 26% of their time and 61% of their data on 5G and their 5G devices can let them experience twice the speed of 4G. Ultimately, we expect 5G to deliver speeds up to ten times faster than 4G. 5G is a critically important telecommunications technology, therefore. However, the real point about 5G is that it is arriving at the same time as other key technologies are converging and maturing cloud computing, artificial intelligence or machine learning, edge computing, software-defined networks to mention, but a few because as we move into the 2020s, it's the combination of these technologies that is going to propel the world forward in automation and robotics, autonomous cars and trucks, augmented virtual reality tools, robotic surgery, the economic and productivity gains will be extraordinary.
The changes to our society will be transformational. And the common feature of this technology innovation is that it all depends on high capacity, fast, and reliable telecommunication networks. And that is why it is so important to get the policy settings for telecommunications in Australia, right. It's not just about Telstra. This is for the future success of our nation. In this regard, we believe there are six key principles and policy areas where focus is needed right now to ensure Australians can take advantage of the economic and social opportunities that this rapidly evolving technology environment create. Firstly, Australia needs a policy and regulatory framework that is pro-investment. High-quality telecommunications networks require an incredible amount of capital investment. Telstra spent $4 billion alone just in the last 12 months on capital expenditure. The industry in total has spent more than 12 billion a year over the last three years, and the investment is crucial. There is no point with application developers and software engineers or service providers investing in great products and services.
If the network providers do not have the capacity or the incentive to invest in the communication platforms to support them. We, therefore, urge policymakers and regulators whilst asking legitimate questions, such as whether customers are getting a good deal and a low price. Please do so through the lens of the amount of capital the telecommunication companies need to invest. Most telcos returns on invested capital already below their cost of capital unless the economics, therefore in the industry are allowed to improve. The consequence will be lower investment in the future, which will lead to poor quality networks similar to that which you see in many international markets. Competition is intense in our industry, in both fixed and mobile. The last few years in particular has seen increasing data allowances to customers and other inclusions, as well as falling prices. Competition is good for industry, and it is good for customers, but it would be wrong to conclude that there is insufficient competition in Australia today.
A second objective is the need to ensure the social and economic benefits of the nbn are realised. Australia needs the nbn to be successful, as you heard from the chairman, but as he explained, there are areas where without change our fixed-line networks in Australia are going to continue to fall behind when compared internationally. This will clearly have a negative impact on Australia's competitive standing. Yes, we need the nbn to be successful, but not at the expense of the rest of the industry failing. That has to change. The third objective is that we must have a regulatory and policy framework that has the same rules and for the same service, regardless of the origins of the industry or the provider. Technology is evolving very quickly, and regulation is struggling to keep pace. As a consequence, some of the policy settings in place today are no longer fit for purpose. For example, many companies such as Telstra hold telecommunication carrier or broadcast licences. These licences impose very significant obligations on us and liabilities, if we do not meet these obligations, there are serious consequences.
At the same time, many of the services that we provide are increasingly mirrored by companies who sit outside of this regulatory framework, including those that operate over the internet rather than traditional channels. These service providers do not have the same universal services obligations. They do not provide the same customer protections as telecommunication companies. I'm not criticizing them for that. I'm simply making the point that it is an unlevel playing field when it comes to regulation and this is bad for competition and bad for customers. My fourth point is on the critical issue of security, cyber breaches and security incidents are definitely on the rise. Our 2019, cybersecurity report shows that 65% of Australian businesses were interrupted one way or another by a cyber breach over the last 12 months. Meeting this challenge needs tight engagement between government who control national security policy and the private sector, where much of the technical innovation in cyber to security takes place.
The importance of ongoing engagement on critical topics such as regulation and encryption, data retention, the operation of networks, interception grow more important by the day. In fact, more important by the hour. My fifth point is that policy and regulatory framework for telecommunications needs to be pro-innovation. As a nation, our future has to be built on innovation. It is the key to diversifying and strengthening our economy. The key to driving the creation of new globally connected industries. The key to developing a strong services based export sector. And the key to produce to boosting productivity and driving new employment. Telstra is part of this. We're currently in the process of recruiting more than 1,500 new roles into the companies in new areas such as software engineering, data analytics, and data science, and cybersecurity. However, the pool for which we are recruiting domestically is too small. Last year, Australia's tertiary system produced about 1,200 software engineers.
Telstra is seeking to recruit 1,500. India produced 44,000. We must therefore continue to support and increase the emphasis on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics subjects through every layer of education, training and retraining sectors in our curriculum and in our classrooms. We must also systematically review our regulations in every industry and every sector, in everything from R and D, immigration visas, dialling up the incentives, and dialling down the red tape. My final point is that we must have a framework that is pro customer and in particular in pro in inclusion. Too many Australians and particularly regional low-income Australians are simply missing out on the opportunities of the digital age. Policy must continue to recognise these divides and contribute to a future where a focus on affordability, accessibility, a digital ability programs, work to build inclusion, particularly for vulnerable and low-income customers, those that are most in need.
ANDY:
As a society and as an economy, as businesses and as individuals, we have become incredibly dependent on our telecommunications networks. That is why telecommunications is fast becoming and arguably already is the single most important infrastructure in every company, in every community, in every state, and in every country in the world. It is also why Telstra remains absolutely committed to ensuring that business is future fit with the best network. Shareholders would be aware that just last week we announced that we will switch off our 3G technology in June 2024. As we grow and upgrade our mobile network, we have reached a point where we must say goodbye to the older network technology, just as we did in 2016, when we switched off 2G to give 4G a boost. We're now at the point where we need to look at switching off 3G to give that spectrum to 5G. Before finishing up. I would like to reconfirm our guidance for the 2020 financial year. The guidance, which can be seen on the screen behind me, was updated last month following the release of NBN's 2020 corporate plan.
That plan indicated a 25% reduction in the total number of premises forecast to be connected during 2020, from two million to 1.5 million. A change, obviously, of that magnitude does materially impact Telstra's guidance on total income, underlying embittered, and the amount included in the NBN headwind, as well as their net one-off NBN receipts. Less the NBN net cost to connect. This change also led Telstra to update a 2020 cost reduction target from 660 million to 630 million. The changes to forecast activations also affect and defer SSI receipts from NBN from 2020 into the future. This, of course, will also be partly offset by the natural hedge, including benefits from lower NBN costs to connect lower network payments to NBN and retained wholesale EBITDA. I want to reinforce, however, that the only change to this NBN rollout and their corporate plan has changed our guidance for 2020. I would also like to highlight that the updated plan does not alter our view provided to the market in August, that our underlying EBITDA when we exclude the NBN headwind is expected to grow by up to $500 million in 2020.
This is a significant improvement on the decline of around 400 billion in 2019 and goes to the point that the chairman has said why this is such an important year and such a point of an inflection point for the company. So, let me summarise before I hand it back to the chairman. 2019 was a year in which we met our guide and built important momentum behind our 02:22 strategy. As expected, and as previously flagged, our results currently reflect the current market realities, including the impact of the NBN and intense competition. Whilst these factors will continue to influence the year ahead, we are now approximately halfway through the negative headwind from the NBN and we expect the hard work from our teams to translate to momentum in the underlying business. That progress was the result of the combined efforts of many people, including many dedicated employees. Every day they are focused on serving our customers and helping to return value to our shareholders. And on your behalf, I want to sincerely thank them for their efforts and their commitment.
I'd also like to thank the Telstra management team, many of which are here today for their dedication, hard work, and willingness to step up to the very significant challenges this year. I'm incredibly proud to work with such a talented and committed group of professionals. We are sitting at an incredibly exciting inflection point in technology, in telecommunications, and for Telstra. We are only a few months away from the dawn of the 2020s. We're already at the dawn of 5G and we have entered a period of rapid technology innovation, which will provide significant opportunities for your company in the future. T22 is about positioning in this world as a simpler, more digitally enabled business with the best network, the right economic model, a strong balance sheet that skills and capabilities, cultures, and ways of working that we need to succeed. Thank you. And let me hand it back to the chairman.
SPEAKER:
Great. Thank you very much, Andy. So, turning now to the film business of the meeting. The atmosphere of business for today's meeting is set out on the screen. I will shortly introduce and invite questions on all of these items. But before I do, I'll outline the question and voting procedures for today's meeting. When you registered this morning, you will have been given a card. Yellow cards are for shareholders who may speak and vote, blue cards for shareholders who may speak but not vote. You will need your card to ask a question or re-enter the meeting. I will introduce each item and then invite questions from the floor. There are several microphones located in the room, as you can see with the numbers there. If you'd like to ask a question, please move to the reserved seating area behind one of the microphones. Please share your card to the microphone attendant and give your name. As a courtesy to all shareholders. Please also state your affiliation if you are not here today in your personal capacity.
The microphone attendant will invite you to the microphone when your turn comes. As always, in the interests of all shareholders, please try to ask only one question at a time, and keep your questions and comments in no more than two minutes to allow as many shareholders as possible to speak, and for me to remember what you asked, and also, please, ask questions which are relevant to shareholders as a whole. If you have individual, customer, or shareholder issues, that's fine, but please speak with one of the customer service staff here who can help you. They are located in the room here and in the customer service area outside wearing Telstra shirts. If we can't answer your question fully here today, then we will aim to provide you with a response after the meeting. As I mentioned at the start of the meeting, voting on items three to five and six, if required is being conducted by poll. For shareholders who are able to vote at today's meeting. You can lodge your vote by completing the voting boxes on your yellow card.
If you have questions about voting at any time today, please speak with one of our staff in the room here or in the shareholder registration area outside who will be happy to assist you. We have received proxies from nearly 22000 shareholders and direct votes from approximately another 13,200 shareholders. The votes recorded for and against each item will be shown on the slide behind me at the conclusion of a discussion of that item. The four numbers displayed for items three to five and against four items six, if required, will include proxies received and available to be voted by the chairman of the meeting. Miss Emma Jones of Link Market Services Ltd, Telstra Share Registrar will act as returning officer in relation to the poll. The results of the poll on items three to five and six if a second strike is received on the remuneration report will be available later today on the ASX and on our website. Lastly, a light lunch will be served at approximately 12 noon. However, if the meeting is still underway at that time, we will not be able to adjourn the meeting for lunch.
So, I turn now to Item two on today's agenda, which is to discuss the company's financial statements and reports for the year ended 30th June 2019. This item provides shareholders with the opportunity to ask questions about and comment on 2019 financial statements and reports, as well as the business operations and management of Telstra. You may also ask questions of our auditor shareholders. I now invite you to move to the microphone to ask any questions you have about our 2019 results or any general questions you have about the company. We're ready to go. Number three?
EMMA JONNES:
Chairman, I would like to introduce Sue Shields from the Australian Shareholders Association.
SUE SHIELDS:
Good morning, my name is Sue Shields, and the volunteer company Monitor with the Australian Shareholders Association. Today, I hold proxies from over 2000 shareholders for approximately 27 million securities, which puts the RSA in your top 10 shareholdings. The ordinary dividend this year represents a 59% payout ratio on underlying earnings, while the Australian Shareholders Association appreciates that in determining the dividend, the board took into account the objectives of maintaining financial strength and flexibility. It's well short of one of the principles of Telstra's capital management framework, namely a payout ratio of 70 to 90%. What assurances can you give us concerning future payout ratios?
SPEAKER:
Great. Thank you. Thank you very much. Good question. I can't give you a firm assurance to your question. The policy on capital management is well laid out, and it seeks to achieve a combination of both balance sheet strength while returning as much as possible to shareholders at the same time. We are very conscious that this year my ordinary pay that 59 on the special, I think about 63%, overall payout this year was around 88%. It's inevitable. Well, that's our framework. But there will be fluctuations from time to time. This was a particularly unusual year with a lot of redundancy costs and restructuring going on. Next year will be a cleaner year and we hope, going forward as well. So, we're very confident that over time, we will absolutely adhere to those two measures we have given being served in the minds of ordinary and approximately 75% of the special. So, you can be assured of that. Thank you. Another one?
EMMA JONNES:
Chairman, I would like to introduce Shane Murphy from Sydney, New South Wales, to speak.
SHANE MURPHY:
Thank you, John Andy, And shareholders. I stood here as a national president of the CIA. You were not here, but in Sydney, 12 months ago or around that time at the last AGM. And since then, we've continually seen customer frustrations, lower payments to shareholders, and whilst we've seen a slight increase in the share price. We're seeing a significant increase in offerings in pay or remuneration to the CEO. At the same time as that, offering of some 33% to 34% remuneration increase is being offered, workers are still struggling to get an enterprise agreement with the company. Whilst we have made some significant inroads over the past negotiation meetings, we are still without an agreement for working people. They are being offered or paid pay rises below inflation. And yet today we still have the CEO being offered some 34% increase in overall remuneration. That clearly causes us as representatives of working people in this nation, in this company, concerns. There's a clear disconnect between what current workers who form a big part of the success of this company are being offered compared to those at the executive level or the CEO.
Thank you.
SPEAKER:
Thank you, Shane. I, of course, 100% understand where you're coming from, but let me try and make a couple of points in response to that. Firstly, I did mention in my earlier comments it's Andy's total remuneration rose by 34%, but that is firstly a fixed and variable amount. The fixed remuneration of the CEO at Telstra has been falling for 10 years and is now lower than it was 10 years ago, and his variable remuneration goes up and down with results. And yes, it went up 34% this year. But let's not forget, it went down 50% in the last two years, so he is still 20% below where he was two years or three years ago. So, no one is expecting your members to take a 50% reduction in their compensation and remember they have a fix, but they also have a variable pace, which you didn't mention. So, there is an SGI component there for employees as well. That said, look, there's no easy answer to your concern other than saying that the amount being offered today, which I think is 1.5%, is actually more than inflation.
Inflation, to my knowledge, is a little bit lower than that, and I have every confidence that the management team will find an acceptable resolution for both you and the company. Thank you.
EMMA JONNES:
Chairman, I'd like to introduce Kyle Robertson, from Northern Victoria.
KYLE ROBERTSON:
Mr. Chairman. My question is about the risk with 5G. Given that Swiss Re-lists 5G and its top five risks for 2019. Can you confirm that Telstra has no public liability insurance for any injury caused by 5G and therefore assumes full direct liability for all claims? Why does the board deem it appropriate to expose shareholders to such extreme liability by deploying 5G technology before the safety of technology has been positively established through comprehensive independent testing instead of through extrapolation, assumption, and experimentation on the public and further infringement of the Nuremberg code prohibits experimentation on human subjects without consent. It says consent is absolutely essential. I want to make it clear I do not consent.
SPEAKER:
OK, thank you. The whole industry, including Telstra, has spent an inordinate amount of time and money on researching any potential health impacts of all ages, not just 5G. So, have governments, so have a wide number of international studies. I can assure you, we are acutely aware of our responsibilities in those areas. But there is absolutely not one shred of evidence that 5G or for that matter, 4G has any harmful effect on humans. And I realized for those that believe, like anti-vaccination or even the flat Earth society, it is very hard to change people's opinion. (CROSSTALK) Just let me just finish. If ever there is any indication whatsoever that we and the industry are wrong, you can be 100% sure that we will not only accept the liability, but we will be all over it. But as of today, there is absolutely no evidence.
KYLE ROBERTSON:
May I just refer you to Professor Martin Paul from the University of Washington? I met the professor there, who, in an open letter to ARPANSA, stated 187 bodies of evidence about human exposure and health risk?
SPEAKER:
Well, the same thing about vaccination and flat earth. I'm sorry. We can only go with the science that is proven by a majority collective view, and there is no such science today.
KYLE ROBERTSON:
I'll also state, for the record, that I am electrically sensitive, so I really don't care what your studies may or may not prove because I feel it.
SPEAKER:
I can see you are a very sensitive person, and so am I to this issue. We will do the right thing, I can assure you.
KYLE ROBERTSON:
Thank you. And before (INAUDIBLE)
EMMA JONNES:
Chairman, I'd like to introduce John Ellery from Warragul Victoria to ask his question.
JOHN ELLERY:
Yes, good morning members of the board. Just to introduce myself, John Ellery. I'm a senior union official with the communications union. Previously, I spent, from 1975, 19 years working in Telstra's leading research area, so I'm not unaware of the circumstances of new technology and all that sort of stuff. I've spent the last 25 years watching a really great company go downhill. And quite frankly, you people on the board really need to ask one simple question of yourself. And that is, where are you taking this company? This company now employs less than 25,000 staff.
SPEAKER:
Originally, it probably employed about 100,000 Australians. So all those Australians that used to work for a once-great icon in Australia. Most of them don't work for that company anymore, and it's an absolute disgrace. The intention with T22 is to have 9,500 job cuts, not the reported 8,000. It's 9,500 job cuts. That will leave less than 20,000 staff once this program of Mr Penn is completed. You, you the board, have corporate responsibility given you have been set up by the Australian taxpayer. That's where Telstra came from, a company owned by taxpayers who clearly expected jobs in Australia for Australians. That arrangement allowed many thousand Australians to be employed and pay their taxes and do all sorts of things that every average everyday Australian as a worker did. You have 20,000 staff members who are seeking security in their job. With Telstra not with some constructed arrangement that you're pursuing at the moment. Which is to appear to throw most of those people across to wholly-owned subsidiaries.
That's what we're learning out of our enterprise agreement negotiations. That your master plan is to probably get the bigger, wider Telstra down to about 5,000 staff. Now that is outrageous. People who are moved or potentially moved across to subsidiaries are in a very precarious position. And we call on you to stop that madness. You've also got 20,000 staff, as Shane mentioned before, who are being offered a paltry ludicrous pay rise at the very same time that Mr Penn is seeking a 34% pay rise. Again, we say absolutely outrageous, ludicrous and you should stop this nonsense. You have an extremely contentious enterprise agreement proposal that is really all about trying to force staff to take long service leave, for instance, at the behest of the manager, not at the individual. People who have been a long-serving staff of yours are now being pushed into taking long service leave when the boss wants them to. Again pull back on these ludicrous plans that you have, you claim it's cost-cutting we say it's ludicrous.
So I repeat, what is your master plan for these 20,000 current staff? Or is it only to have 5,000 Telstra staff and then have the rest of them moved over to subsidiaries? Or just plain sacked or moved or their jobs moved offshore? You've been pretty good at that. You got a lot of calls in the staff offshore in Manila. You got a lot of technical staff not even working for Telstra, doing Telstra work that was done in Australia by high-level technical people over in Pune, in India. So you've really got a real question about you. About what are your moral guidance, what is your moral guidance? About, you know, where are jobs being produced in Australia? 20,000 of your current staff really wanna know where their future lies. I'll leave it at that. Thank you, board.
AUDIENCE:
(APPLAUSE)
CHAIRMAN:
OK, thank you. I did try to address some of this in my earlier comments. Of course, we take it very seriously. We do not like, we feel the human impact of losing staff. But your suggestion that because Telstra once employed 100,000 people, somehow we're doing badly when we no longer employ that. I think if the measure of a company's success was how many staff it was employed, not sure that the shareholders in this meeting would be very happy with us. The reality is our world is changing. I've been through the impact of the NBN. Half of those 6,000 which is ultimately gonna be 8 or 9,000. Those people are losing their jobs 'cause we're losing half of the business that we used to operate. Are you really suggesting that we keep those people just sitting in an office somewhere while the work is being done in another part of the industry? Unfortunately, we're not alone. Every industry is going through. If you're going to David Jones and go in the lift, there isn't somebody who got Jingjing which floors you press a button.
No, that is happening across every industry, and ours is probably at the leading edge of it. Your 5,000 staff thing, is the first I've heard of that. I'm not aware of anybody on the board I can see management nodding. We've never heard of the 5,000, so I'm not sure where you've invented that from. Where are we going? Well, we're just trying to explain we're going through the biggest transformation this company has ever been through. The T22 program is extensive. It's to make sure that Telstra survives and wins in this environment where everyone is going through the same thing. You look at every big telco, they have exactly the same thing. They're laying off staff. They're restructuring, they're embracing technology. Sadly, that is the reality of life. And one more thing on Andy's pay. I really have to say I struggle that for some reason the business community is singled out. You know, if somebody devotes their life to sports and on a Friday night, they then instead of going out with their mates, they go training and they give up their holidays and weekends.
They get to top of their sport, they get rewarded for it, and no one seems to begrudge that. And so same with music. The online gaming industry young kids can earn $5 million now by playing Fortnite. And even influencers you can earn millions of dollars just by wearing a nice jacket and standing in front of a landmark. And yet, when a business executive devotes a huge portion of their life, they work long, long hours, weekends. They miss family events when they get to the top of their profession. Somehow, it is morally wrong that they get rewarded for it in an international global market. I think that is wrong. Thank you.
AUDIENCE:
(APPLAUSE)
CHAIRMAN:
Number three.
SPEAKER:
Chairman, I would like to introduce Scott Hunter from Melbourne, please.
SCOTT HUNTER:
Good morning. I've got a few brief comments to make. In 1983, there were 26,000 public phone boxes. There's now 13,000. These are public assets originally paid for by the taxpayer need to be kept and maintained, and therefore emergency calls are often needed. The new design has no privacy to make a call. It used to be a booth with a bench to put one's bag and documents on. The new ones don't. They're designed by someone who doesn't use them. 50 cents for a call if you use a $2 coin, you don't get change. Every other device in this country, ticket machines, drink machines give change. Why don't phone boxes? The Telstra pricing of some services is wrong and unfair. The cheapest home phone plan is $42 a month, with each call to a mobile phone charged at $1 a minute. Mobile plans can be got for $30 a month, which is $1 a day, with unlimited calls to mobile phones. One is too cheap, the others too dear. There are a lot of pranks attempted scam robbery nuisance calls that need to be blocked, traced and stopped permanently.
Particularly once fraudulently claiming to be Telstra staff. The technology is available to do this. The aim of these scammers is to steal information to rob everyone they contact. This could bankrupt potentially everyone in Australia. Don't wait for the government to ask you to stop these calls. Telstra should show leadership and do it themselves. Is there a Telstra museum? If so, where is it? If not, why not? It could display PMG Telecom and Telstra history in artefacts, phones, phone books, phone boxes and phone cards. There's a secondary market for these items and souvenirs. Telstra should be middle manning the price. When someone comes out to connect up the NBN and the contractors are used through incompetence, cut off the Telstra service to a house and you have to ring up and get Telstra to come out and repair it at Telstra's expense, and you're left without a phone for three days. Does Telstra pass on the cost of this back to the NBN or do they just pay it themselves? If they pay it themselves, why?
And when you sack 4,000 middle-level management staff that leaves staff at the bottom unmanaged. Is this wise? What happens to the sacked staff? And it's not just the person sacked, but the position forever. Can't you retrain them as the IT staff you need?
AUDIENCE:
(APPLAUSE)
CHAIRMAN:
Well, thank thanks for sticking to the two questions. Yeah, that's one two three four five six seven eight, that's nine. But I'll do my best. I'll do my best. So on the phone boxes, I have to say I'm not intimately acquainted with why it doesn't give change. But I'm sure Andy if you got do you wanna say anything about that?
ANDREW PENN:
Well, I'd happily say so. We actually have 15 and a half thousand public phone boxes at the moment. They're under the universal services obligation with the government, so we work with them regarding the design and the placement of them. But ultimately, you know, our aspiration is actually to make them free. So it does not make sense to go through and systematically upgrade the technology to provide change we'll make them essentially free over time.
CHAIRMAN:
Great. The next one was on mobile charges. Look, this is a very dynamic industry. Mobile plans have to be competitive with the rest of the industry. We make no secret of the fact that we're more expensive than most operators because we believe we have the best network and the best service. But that said, we have to be competitive or people wouldn't use us. On the scams, that is a very difficult one. And it's easy for you to say we should just wave a magic wand and fix scam calls. We can and do block numbers where we know that scams are originating. But the technology is out there is to rotate through millions of different numbers. A call comes from a different number every time. We and the rest of the industry we're working with, ACMA are working with ACCC on trying to find ways of identifying the sources of these scam calls and trying to build technologies to beat them. But it's a constant race as the scammers and the criminals, like in many areas of society, are always innovating and one step ahead.
All I can say really is the individual has to try to use their own wisdom, and if you don't trust it, just hang up. If it's really important, it'll come back. If it isn't just hang up. And there is actually a Telstra brochure which can be found on the website and saying, Is it really Telstra calling? That will give you some guidance through that. But sadly our society does have criminals in it and we don't have a solution to fixing every single one of those criminal attempts. Is there a Telstra museum? Yes, there is, and it is in Hawthorn, it is actually well worth a visit. Some fantastic history in there. Regarding the NBN I can't really generalize. It depends when a fault is fixed, whether the fault was the fault of the NBN or it was the fault of Telstra or some other matter. But I can assure you, we don't give NBN a free ride there. You asked what had happened to the 4,000 middle management staff? Obviously, I don't know the individual outcomes. But I do know that Telstra's invested $50 million in trying to help people retrain outside the company.
And within the company, we have an extensive retraining program, which I think we'll see 1,500 people or something or more actually move into other jobs. That I think was the end of your nine questions. I hope I've answered those. Thank you. Number four.
AUDIENCE:
(APPLAUSE)
SPEAKER:
Chairman, I would like to introduce Vince Misquera (UNKNOWN) from Sunshine Victoria.
VINCE MISQUERA:
Good morning, John. I have a two-part question. My first question is directed to the CEO, Andy. I'm a former employee of Telstra. Andy when your predecessor, David Thodey was in charge we had an active Telstra alumni program. Under your leadership, it has gone quiet. My second part is second question is when I was going to university many years ago, a professor of economics said to me that the salary of the lowest-paid employee and the highest-paid employee should never be more than 10 times that. So that we don't have a situation where we have CEOs becoming too rich. Would you look at having some sort of a ratio for Telstra? Thank you.
AUDIENCE:
(APPLAUSE)
CHAIRMAN:
Let me answer the second bit, and then maybe Andy you have a go at the first bit. So on the multiple. Yeah, that is something that we are very conscious of. If we look around the world, Australia and Telstra actually performs pretty well and obviously still not to the satisfaction of everybody. The multiple in the United States is 287 times, multiple in the UK is 200 times. In Telstra, it's about 60, but depending on because so much of Andy's pay is variable and goes up and down. If you've got no variable pay, it would be 20. So on a fixed comparison, it's only 20. But obviously, that goes up with whether it's been a good year or a bad year. So we are as Australia amongst the lowest, and Telstra sits pretty well within that within Australia as well. Do you wanna have a go at the first question, Andy?
ANDREW PENN:
Yeah, sure. Look well, obviously. Telstra has a very rich and significant Alumni being such a large organisation. And at different points in the past, we've had various different alumni programs. We obviously take feedback in terms of how they received it and how people want to engage with the organisation. You know, we've mentioned the Telstra museum that's something that a number of our alumni get involved in. Telstra exchange, which is something that we use in terms of our broader communication. As well as Telstra Super, which obviously is an important part of the post-employment support of employees. The formal alumni program was not getting is a significant support that we would have aspired for it to have. I'm very happy to continue to get feedback from former Telstra employees and I'm personally like to speak to them from time to time and get their feedback as well 'cause it's something that we'll continue to look at.
CHAIRMAN:
Thanks, Andy. Number four.
SPEAKER:
Chairman, I would like to introduce Peter Star from Sydney, New South Wales.
PETER STAR:
Morning, John. How are you?
CHAIRMAN:
Good, Peter. Welcome, as always.
PETER STAR:
Yes if I'd been here last year, maybe we wouldn't have got the strike. I apologize for that. For those who don't know, I've been a long term shareholder for more than 12 years. I also represent a number of other shareholders and (UNKNOWN) superannuation pension funds. John, it's always a hard thing remuneration across the board, and I go to a number of meetings. But from where I stand and I heard what Sue had to say. I feel that you look at the mum and dad shareholders look at the share price. And I know it's easy to gloss over and say, Oh, well, it doesn't matter because, you know, back in February 2015, we were at $61 but we've had NBN and all the rest and we got $11 million. And I know Nora's been there and I've been there when all that negotiations and everything we went through. It's a hard thing for mum and dad shareholders sometimes to say, well, you know. Friday, our shares closed at 357. Yesterday we closed the 350 because of some announcement, you know. We just getting tossed around and we feel it, especially for the people who are holding and continue to hold and indeed even reinvest.
So I just think that as far as what we're gonna pay Andy from the shareholders I represent and myself personally. I don't have a great problem with it, but I just think we just need to be aware of the alignment as far as where the shares and the price sits. Because that's what affects mum and dad shareholders. And this company is made up of a lot of mum and dad shareholders. John, your predecessor, Miss Livingston, was probably wish that she was back here instead of being dragged through the mess at CommBank and the Royal Commission and the tears that's brought her. But you're here. So it is the mum and dad shareholders are very important to this organisation and to this company. So I'll have some other things to say on other questions. But and again, the second one just for you, John. Andy, I don't know if Michael Eklund is here. Is he here, Andy?
CHAIRMAN:
Depends on what you're gonna ask.
PETER STAR:
Don't worry.
CHAIRMAN:
Yes, he is. He's here.
PETER STAR:
I hope he got the message from his staff.
CHAIRMAN:
Did he get the message? He did.
PETER STAR:
Now he knows me, he'll be able to talk to me. Thanks, John.
CHAIRMAN:
Thank you. Look, Peter, of course, we are acutely aware of the impact that the share price has on mums and dads, on superannuation funds and the like. We have, I think, pretty well. The highest retail shareholder base of any major corporate in Australia of around 50%. Which is all of the people in this room today and many, many, many more. We have 1.3 million shareholders, the vast majority of whom are private individuals. So we absolutely understand that we are all shareholders too. Every one of us sitting on up here is a shareholder, so we experience it too. The reality is, however, we only have a limited degree of control over what happens to the share prices. And big business is no different to a little business. You know if you're in a small business, if you've got two news agencies and they're both making a profit and you sell one newsagent, you'll only have one news agency left. Are you gonna employ all the same number of staff? Are you going to earn the same? No, no, you're not.
And that's what's happening to Telstra. The NBN is taking away about half of up to half of our net profit, which from which dividends are paid and obviously impacts the share price. So that's the fact we can't do anything about it. But other than that, we then have to not just sit on my hands, but we have to try to rebuild Telstra as actively as we can so that we can increase dividends again one day and see our share price rise. And that's what's the T22 program is all about. And there are many thousands of people working extremely long hours trying to deliver the sort of result that you ask for from mums and dads shareholders. So we will never forget it. We can't unfortunately wave a magic wand. But we will never forget our responsibility.
PETER STAR:
Thanks, John.
CHAIRMAN:
OK. Number one.
SPEAKER:
Chairman, I'd like to introduce Ian Blair from Carlton Victoria to ask his question.
IAN BLAIR:
Thank you very much for this opportunity. Firstly, I'd like to congratulate the board for having a good presentation, and I hope that it's available on the net rather than just having it as a printed document. (CROSSTALK) Secondly, I in over a 10 year period, worked for five years with Telstra, so I'm a strong Telstra fan.
SPEAKER 1:
I've got one observation and one question. Firstly, I was there at the time of the NBN negotiations. And I was appalled that the board rolled over with Richard Alston and let the government turn around and take it away. Telstra was in a fantastic position to have rolled out the whole NBN, done it for half the cost, and yet got totally Turnbull and everyone else torn it apart. So, I think it's too late to plead. But in future, have a bit of backbone to stand up to the government. And to turn around, Telstra is a huge company. And with all the fathers and mothers and families, shareholders, you should be able to convince the government on proper policy. So, Gina Rinehart was prepared to get out on the mining industry, and the mining tax. Let's see the board on the back of a truck going around and convincing the government on good telecom policy because as you rightfully pointed out, the whole future digital disruption is going to dominate every industry. And we need to be on top of it. So, the question is, how about Telstra having a fantastic training program that's available to us shareholders, so that we can keep up with 5G, and what the next one is, but also train their staff that are coming away so that we don't have to get them in on 457 visa's thing.
We've got the talent in Australia, let's train them and use them here. Thank you.
JOHN MULLEN:
Good. Well, firstly on the NBN, and backbone, et cetera. I think I made some comments earlier. They're clearly some strong views around these to what the NBN could have been or not been if things had been different. But they weren't, where we are. I mean, please don't forget that when you're negotiating with a government, it's not a normal commercial relationship, because they just pass a law to make you do what they want you to do, and that's quite hard to fight. However, today we are where we are. And yes, we absolutely try to have a backbone, as you put it, to robustly defend the interests of Telstra. But we're also mindful, as you heard from both Andy's comments to mine, that this currently, anyway the NBN and the broadband issue. That's a national issue, that's not a Telstra issue, or an NBN, or anybody else. It's a national issue that the whole industry and government needs to get together to resolve. And you can be sure that we will absolutely do our part in that. Then, I think you asked, how do you as shareholders ensure that the company is keeping up with technology and leading Telstra in all the changes that are going on?
I can honestly say there, I've been amazed in the time that I've been at Telstra that, Telstra really does punch above its weight as the expression goes on a global basis. So, we may be a big fish in the little pond here in Australia, when you go overseas, Telstra's very little fish in a very big pond. But I'm constantly amazed at the access that Telstra gets, the recognition that Telstra gets for the innovation that takes place under Andy and the team. And it's something a long tradition. A whole number of industry firsts have taken place here in Australia, the most recent one being 5G on the Gold Coast with Ericsson, which I think was the first. That was the first global demonstration of how Andy, personally sits, not just on the GSMA but he's on a quite number of industry bodies and forums where Telstra's voice is heard loud and clear. And I can absolutely say, Telstra is right up there at the cutting edge of change in our industry. And we as a board will continue to 100% support Andy and the team in making sure that Telstra stays there.
Something I think you can be justifiably proud of. Thank you. Number three.
SPEAKER 2:
Chairman, I would like to introduce Norman Wong, from Melbourne.
NORMAN WONG:
Thank you. Mr Chairman, members of the board, and shareholders. My question is, how active are your customer satisfaction surveys if they exist? Thank you.
JOHN MULLEN:
Thank you. So, trying to keep pace, obviously, with what the customer thinks, given the number of customers we have, 18 million or more, is always a challenge, and no measure is perfect. We measure two principle metrics, which is around the Net Promoter Score Methodology, which is a widely accepted methodology used in the marketplace around the world. We divide that into an episode. And by episode NPS we mean, when you've just had an interaction or an experience with Telstra, you've just been on the phone, or you've just bought something from the store, or whatever you've just that moment done, we ask you for your feedback on Telstra's performance and customer service, at that moment in time. That we feel represents the cutting edge of change and improvement that we're making in Telstra. Then, we also measure what is called Strategic NPS, which is a sort of general perception of Telstra, would you recommend Telstra to someone else, et cetera. That inevitably lags movement. If the company goes into decline or starts to really improve, it takes a while before the general perception changes will do eventually.
So, what happens in an episode will ultimately impact Strategic, but it takes time. So, we measure both in order to try to be on top of the now, but also the general impression that Telstra is creating. And you'll be glad to know that we are making good gains. Still nowhere near where we'd like to be, but we're making good gains and management are targeted at every year. Part of their variable compensation is based around achievement of improvement in those Net Promoter Scores. Thank you. Number three, again, I think, you know.
SPEAKER 2:
Chairman, I would like to introduce Hans Witteveen from Seymour Place.
HANS WITTEVEEN:
Thank you. Good morning, Mr Chairman.
JOHN MULLEN:
Morning.
HANS WITTEVEEN:
In the financial statement, the cost reduction program and reducing fixed costs. It always comes back to staff reductions, 8,000 people, whatever it is. My question is, how is this balanced against maintaining skill levels with it to keep the company going? I did take note of the CEO's comment that we're recruiting people for new skills. But at the same time, you also need to keep people to maintain the old levels until you're at the new platforms. You spoke fairly convincingly on the need to recognize the skills of the board. You spoke less convincingly on the remuneration of the actual staff. But the real question is when you let 8,000 people go, how are you dealing with maintaining the skills to keep the business going?
JOHN MULLEN:
Yeah. Look, that's obviously a critically important issue. It's also a complicated issue, 'cause of the people that leave. Some people are leaving because we just don't have that job anymore. Some people are leaving because technology has changed and that particular activity is now being replaced with another, and a whole variety of different reasons. But I do know that our HR team, you know, very ably led by Alex Badenoch, who is here, puts a huge amount of time and effort with the rest of the management team, on ensuring that the skills mix is right is fit for purpose. Sometimes you lose people you don't want to lose. Of course, it doesn't always go to plan. But by and large, we've been actually really reassured that if anything, the skill set of Telstra is improving. It's rising. It's not declining, as a lot of those older, more manual jobs are disappearing and they're being replaced by more high tech jobs. But it is something we absolutely have to focus on. The race is for talent just as much as it is for financial success.
And we have to make sure that we're up there and a leader, in that respect. Number one, please.
SPEAKER 3:
Chairman, I'd like to introduce Bill Davey from Victoria.
BILL DAVEY:
I'm Bill Davey, a shareholder. My question is, what percentage of revenue comes from broadband as against mobile services? And what's your estimate in, say, five years time, the split between the revenue streams?
JOHN MULLEN:
Sorry, what percentage comes from the segments and?
BILL DAVEY:
Percentage of revenue comes from broadband services as against mobile services?
JOHN MULLEN:
Well, correct me if I'm wrong, Andy. I think our fixed revenue is about 19 or 20% of our total revenue, and the data and IP revenue is about nine.
ANDREW PENN:
In mobile, would be close to about 40%.
JOHN MULLEN:
Mobile close to 38, 40%. Yeah. But mobile is a bigger contributor to margin, than the others.
BILL DAVEY:
And what's the estimate in, say, five years time? Is that more mobile against fixed broadband or?
JOHN MULLEN:
Well, we would hope to maintain a strong fixed base despite the whole of the, will change going on in the NBN. That's the one, obviously, where we have less certainty, probably. Mobile is clearly going to be an absolute critical success factor for any telecommunications company in the future. I mean, we have nearly 50% market share. It's our biggest profit generator, and we have by far the best network in Australia. So, we will be doubling down on our performance in that area. That said, obviously, fixed, we're now becoming just a reseller of the NBN, and we have to try and succeed in that world. And we've done actually quite well there in that as the transition took place from a direct relationship with the customer to the relationship through the NBN. There are a lot of predictions that Telstra will lose, share, et cetera. Well, we haven't. In fact, if anything, we've certainly held not growing market share and the old data and IP area, that's obviously an area of considerable flux.
I made some comments there about the NBN's activities in that area. That's an important part of a small but still very important part of our business. And we have to see that transition through it, whether it's to new wideband solutions provided by Telstra, or a resetting of the NBN.
BILL DAVEY:
Thank you.
JOHN MULLEN:
Thank you. Number four.
SPEAKER 4:
Chairman. I'd like to introduce Lee Kilton from Northern Rivers, New South Wales.
LEE KILTON:
Thank you, Mr Chairman. I am representing my self-managed super fund, and I have taken a 50% hit in my earnings from my investment in Telstra this year. So, I feel the pain of some of the staff who haven't had increases. I don't share the pain with the board, because you haven't had any decrease at all. But that's the way it is. Last year, we had a reduction in profit after tax of nearly 10% in the company. This year, we're down 40%. And that is the net profit after tax, which in fact is what affects most of our investment in the company. It seems to me that this meeting should have been held seven or eight years ago when we were given hope for the future by the new technologies, and the new systems that are being put in place. Last year at the AGM, you mentioned that the NBN was the main contributor to our woes, and we all pointed out to you that this wasn't something new you had known about the NBN for some time. Next year, you're saying that we're hitting even greater headwinds with the NBN.
So, I wonder whether 10% to the 40%, will go next year, and consequently what happens to our dividends in years ahead? The buck stops with the board and as I mentioned to you last year, there's no point in bemoaning the fact that we have an NBN rollout that we've known about for 10 years. You've been on the board for more than 10 years and the one or two other members of the board that have been there for significant periods of time. Surely at that stage when they introduced the NBN, you did some modelling as to what the effects of the rollout would be and how you would maintain value in the company when that started to take place. You know, you talked about the newsagent having two newsagents and selling one and not expecting it to be the same business afterwards. Well, what did your modelling say you should do with this company when shares were up around the $6.50 mark, when the CEO was appointed, and when you took over as chair? And we're now sitting at $3.50 in round terms. So, you know, we can say the share price is of little relevance because we can't control what the market says.
What the share price does is it is the collective intelligence of the investing public out there, both here and overseas, as to whether this is a company worth that sort of money to invest in. So, I get back to my point that the collective responsibility here rests with the board as to the direction and the quality of the company and what we are doing with the resources within the company. I asked a question at last year's AGM as to what you're doing with board renewal. Because I don't see any younger faces who've grown up with digital technology, sitting on the board or even recommended for board positions. I see a lot of people who are professional directors that sit on the board that haven't grown up with that space of technology that we are needing to take this company forward. So, can you please explain to me what you are doing with board renewal that reflects the future direction of the company, not the past history of the company? Thank you.
JOHN MULLEN:
Thank you. OK, let me have a go at the first bit. Yes, we did know 10 years ago that the government had an intention to create an NBN. We did not know what form that would take. We did not know how that would be structured. We did not know when it would actually finally happen. So, in all that meantime, we had to continue running Telstra because there was no NBN. So, to suggest that we should have suddenly made all those changes 10 years ago in anticipation of the NBN might have arrived, I think it's a little ludicrous. That said when the NBN did arrive, yes, we did make a whole lot of projections. And one thing, whether we're at fault or I don't know, we certainly read the whole industry estimate that reselling the NBN would be a profitable occupation. Now, we all had different views of how profitable we certainly had our modelling. That, unfortunately, has turned out for the whole industry to not be the case. So, absolutely is the board accountable, 100%, so is management. But it's very easy to say, well, you've lost half your net profit, we'll just go and replace it.
I had this conversation with shareholders all the time. So, what do you actually recommend that Telstra does, that it's not doing now with the G20 program anything else? And very easy to say, just find, 3 billion. But that is equivalent to finding another ASX 20 company. It's the equivalent of creating overnight another Qantas. So, I really think it's a little impractical to expect that a board or management team can wave a magic wand, and just achieve that. That said, we are on the hook 100%, and accountable for doing something about it, which is what we are doing. And the T22 program is one of the most ambitious in the world, if not the most ambitious. As I mentioned earlier, I found it quite interesting that in recent times we used to go overseas a lot to look at other major telcos and see what lessons we could learn, 'cause everyone is going through the same challenges, and they don't have any solutions either. We have gone overseas to look and see what we could learn. The T22 program is actually engendering traffic the other way, and we are starting to have a number of visits from very large international telcos who are coming to look at the T22 experience and the Telstra experience as being leading, in this respect.
So, have we got it alright? No. Are we able to fix everything and fill every gap? No, but I can assure you we are trying extremely hard and that has been recognised in the Global Telco World. Last but not least, your comment about board renewal. Let me say two things. One, I'm extremely proud of the board renewal that we have. We now have an extremely well-equipped board for the challenges of today. We have three leading technology senior executives from around the world who have been through this sort of thing in much bigger economies than ours. We're extremely lucky to have them. And then, we have some very diligent and talented local directors as well. We have two vacancies that we are about to fill. I had been hoping that I would be able to do it before this meeting in order to address exactly your question. Both of those will be filled before Christmas. And one of them you'll be delighted to know is an awful lot younger than all the rest of us on this board. And we look forward to introducing you to her next year.
Number one.
SPEAKER 3:
Chairman, I'd like to introduce Patrick Masrani from Sydney to come to the mike.
PATRICK MASRANI:
Chairman, board, shareholders, Minchin's been made of the Telstra alumni program this morning, it's a cause that the board's devotion could not be questioned on. Indeed, you've bolstered their ranks by nine and a half thousand. Those staff who haven't yet graduated to alumni status are increasingly concerned that their roles are going to be moved into subsidiaries, like corporate nesting dolls. Their terms and conditions undermined each step further removed from the company that's taken. What undertaking can you give to those staff that their conditions won't go backwards, that they won't be undercut through the creation of subsidiaries? Thank you.
JOHN MULLEN:
Yeah. I don't understand why there would be a fear that I mean, a company like Telstra, I don't know how many companies we've got in the group. We've got many 100s, and our employees and or assets are structured all across those. It really is. We are, however, one group. And whether an employee is in this part or that part doesn't make any difference to the terms and conditions. So, we have no intention of some sinister methodology of moving somebody from one company to another, in some way disadvantage them or give them less terms and conditions than they have today. We've no intent to do that.
PATRICK MASRANI:
Sorry. Chairman, just for clarity. So, to understand correctly, that you would not be in a position to give an undertaking that staff will not be transferred to subsidiaries, where they would receive less favourable conditions than that which they currently receive as Telstra employees?
JOHN MULLEN:
I can give you an undertaking. There is no intent to transfer somebody from Company A to Company B, just to reduce their terms and conditions. Absolutely. OK.
PATRICK MASRANI:
Noted.
JOHN MULLEN:
OK. Number three.
SPEAKER 2:
Chairman, I would like to introduce Dr Michael Chong, please, from Rosanna.
DR MICHAEL CHONG:
Mr Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to ask questions. I'm respecting myself, my wife, my family, I'm super fun and the children. We all got Telstra shares from the beginning. And first of all, we bought the share because it was a monopoly. I like Monopoly. Unfortunately, the government changed their mind. And then, they stripped their monopoly from Telstra. And it's very, very unfortunate. But now.
SPEAKER:
This NBN has been built gradually, but now they're not just wholesaler. They're also pinching the customer from the Telstra (INAUDIBLE) and other Optus. Like Coles, Woolies and (INAUDIBLE) they're pinching customer. Would that impact the profit of the retailers? Second thing is that if you, because it's very hard to earn money in this section. Can you ask Mr. (UNKNOWN) create a new business in the Telstra Corporation so they earn money to compensate for the loss of business in Telstra. Thank you.
JOHN MULLEN:
Was there any money to compensate the loss of...?
SPEAKER:
I'm not sure. I mean, the reference was to the NBN entering into the enterprise market. I'm not sure.
JOHN MULLEN:
I'm not sure I got all of your questions so come back if I've left anything out, but we should keep the NBN in perspective. Yes, it's a big impact on our business, but we still have an extremely dynamic and successful business outside the NBN. And I don't want the whole focus just to be on the impact of the NBN. Our mobile business, it's 50% market share in the company. We are absolutely world leading. I gave you some of the statistics earlier, that's probably a rank number two in the world. That is the future of Telstra. So don't be too alarmed that because we're having battles in the fixed area with the NBN that it spells doom for the whole corporation. It doesn't. That said, we were asked about backbone. Yes, we are fighting our corner in that whole fixed area, because it is an important part of our business, a profitable part of our business. And the particular issue that I raised was the mandate of NBN not to go direct to our customers, but to sell wholesale through ourselves and other service providers.
That we believe, is critical, head to the structure and the order that governments have put into the fixed market, whether we like it or not, it's the way it is. But both sides need to respect their mandate. So we will be pressing government and NBN very hard to try to make sure that they honour their side of the bargain. Just like we are honouring our side of the bargain. Thank you. Number four.
SPEAKER:
Chairman, I would like to introduce Kevin Saunders from Melbourne, Victoria.
KEVIN SAUNDERS:
Thank you chairman. I'm a shareholder both directly and as a part of our superannuation fund. My question, you've clearly pointed out today, the impact of NBN on our business. And you refer to it, I think quite cleverly as owning two shops and now you only have one shop. My point is I would like to know, as we now have one shop, do we still require such a large board and senior management? And should our CEOs still be paid the same salary? Thank you.
JOHN MULLEN:
Well, I think that's just a reiteration of the subject we've been over a few times. I would again stress, boards are really important, but what is a lot more important is management teams. And the one thing that you as shareholders can guarantee will damage your interests, is if you don't have a top, talented management team to navigate through these difficult times. Managing a business in good times is an awful lot easier than managing business in difficult times. And it's absolutely critical that the board ensures that you as shareholders have an outstanding management team. Which I believe we do, but we have to support them and remunerate them accordingly or we won't have such a team. Number one, please.
SPEAKER:
Chairman, next up I've got an Emily Cross from Melbourne who would like to ask her question.
EMILY CROSS:
I apologize for my croaky voice. Gentlemen, first of all I usually get up on principle at AGMs because apart from the lady representing other shareholders, no other female has as yet taken to the (INAUDIBLE) microphone here. So, could you unravel this particular little story for me? As I look around the room, most of people have got hair my colour. So I thank you for the platinum plan, but could you unravel this story for me? At the Carlton shop where I usually go for my appointments, in the last six months the first young person who used to take my problems has gone off to do a musical career. He was brilliant. Second one got moved to another store to be manager, good luck to them. Another one has gone off to USA somewhere to take up a position with some US IT company. So my question is, what efforts do you make to keep young people at these lower levels in stores in the company, and give them opportunities to become one of you?
JOHN MULLEN:
That's a very good question. Let me try and answer it with an anecdote. A friend of mine, I discovered by accident, actually has a son working at Telstra. Who is, I'd say he's probably 28 or something like that, a young person. And my friend said, "Would you meet with him and just have a chat? It would make his day." (INAUDIBLE) "I'd love to, of course, no problems." I went and had a coffee with him a little while ago in Sydney. He is an extremely bright young man involved in the digitization project. That's digitizing our company from top to bottom, working in agile teams. And I came away from that meeting so infused probably more, I think, than he was. He said that the digital transformation program going on in Telstra today is the most exciting in Australia. Everybody in his area wants to work in it. I actually know with another hat of being told the CIO, the chief... The head of IT in Toll, said to me that we can't recruit anybody in digitalization because all the engineers have gone to Telstra.
So we do actually have an extremely dynamic young middle core there that is building a Telstra of the future. And these people are all my children's age, they're not our age. Our job is the supervision of the entity overall, but the people who will be sitting here in years to come will be some of those really bright, driven, dynamic and motivated young people in Telstra. I can absolutely assure you, there are a lot of them. Thank you. Well, believe it or not, there are no more questions as yet. Shareholders, even better news, lunch and refreshments are now being served outside. So if I wait... No more questions? Great. OK. There are no more questions there. That's finished, that item. Now, our next item is item three, being director election and reelection. As I mentioned before, we have three candidates standing for election or reelection and their details were served in the notice of meeting. So, I would now like to invite the three candidates, Eelco, Craig and Nora to address the meeting, in that order.
EELCO BLOK:
Thank you, John. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, my name is Eelco Blok. I'm very honoured to have been nominated to join the board of Telstra. I've enjoyed the journey so far since I joined the board in the beginning of this year. I'm Dutch and have 35 of years of telecommunication experience, of which the last seven years from 2011 until 2018 as CEO of KPN, the Dutch former increment operator. In addition, I was on the board of directors at the industry association, the GSMA, and given my telecommunications experience and the transformation of KPN, I believe I'm well positioned to contribute to Telstra, particularly as the company transforms under the T22 strategy. I look forward to continue to add as much value as I can to this great company, its customers, its employees and its shareholders. Thank you. (APPLAUSE)
JOHN MULLEN:
Great.
CRAIG DUNN:
Well, thank you, John. And good morning, ladies and gentlemen, it's been a great honour to serve on the board as your representative, and I'm grateful for the opportunities to speak to you all today. Telstra of course occupies a very special place in the history of our great country and has always made a very significant contribution and an enduring one to the communities it serves, as I know it will continue to do so. But as John mentioned in his opening remarks this morning, no company's future can be guaranteed or its success can be guaranteed, particularly in a world of such constant and rapid change. And so it is critical that a business can respond and adapt quickly and decisively. That means sometimes making very difficult decisions to stay relevant and to keep providing value to its customers. It obviously needs to do that in a way that's responsible, but also in a way that adds value to the risk capital that you shareholders invest in the company. And as John and Andy has explained, T22 does just that.
And in an environment that we are facing as a company, it's important that the stewardship and effective governance of Telstra, the board level, is done very well. And it's also important that those that take on that responsibility are equally committed to the delivery of the T22 program as it works its way through the next couple of years. And I like the rest of my colleagues, I'm very committed to the roll out of T22. I believe I've made a demonstrable contribution to the board, and I believe I have the career experience to keep doing so. I've worked in the financial services sector for nearly 25 years. I've lived and worked overseas, both in Asia and in Europe. And during that period, I've learned some very valuable lessons, which I think are things that can be shared at Telstra, including during the period of the global financial crisis. And more recently, as with other directors, following the Royal Commission into Financial Services. And a key lesson that stands out for me from both those experiences is the importance of good corporate governance and effective board oversight in providing a clear compass for sound decision making for the benefit of shareholders and customers alike.
I've also made a significant contribution to the development of sound public policy settings in financial services. I've been on a number of important government inquiries. And I think, again, that's something that I can add to given the regulatory oversight in the telecommunication sector. And finally, in a large and complex organization like Telstra, I think it's critical that your board's make up include directors with strong financial backgrounds. And with that in mind, I was very honoured to take on the role of chair of Telstra's audit and risk committee earlier this year. So with your support, I look forward to continuing to support you and working for this great company. Thank you. (APPLAUSE)
NORA SCHEINKESTEL:
Good morning ladies and gentlemen, I feel we are starting to sound like a bit of a broken record, but I can't emphasize enough how Telstra is at the forefront of the profound change that's happening in society today. And it is brought about by new technology, but also by fundamental change in the way where living, working, playing. And Telstra is helping our customers, both retail and business to adjust to these changes, which are affecting every aspect of their lives. But we too are feeling the impacts. And that is why we have embarked on this very important transformation program, T22, so that we can better serve our customers, but also be a fitter and stronger company, delivering good returns to our shareholders and providing meaningful roles for our employees. I've served nine years on the Telstra board. And normally I would've retired at this meeting, but the board has asked me to serve another term subject, of course, to your deciding, to reelect me today. That's because they believe that my experience in the nine years here at Telstra, but also in more than 25 years, serving on many other boards across pretty much every sector of our economy will be of help as we progress through this significant transformation.
I've been part of reshaping other companies facing intense competition in their markets, significant disruption and huge regulatory change. I've chaired many audit and risk committees of major listed Australian companies. And believe that that background will continue to help the Telstra management team and board manage the critical risks which are inherent in the important work we are undertaking. We've also had a lot of change. As the chairman mentioned, we've had change on our board of directors and obviously in our own management team as we prepare ourselves for the challenges that lie ahead. The board therefore also recognized that I could bring both continuity and some corporate history. Indeed, as I think it's been mentioned earlier today, I joined the board while the ink on the first NBN deal was still wet. So I've seen two of those now and we look forward to the next stage. Delivering on T22 and then setting the course for Telstra for the next phase ahead, I think is critical, not just for our company, but indeed for our country.
And I do believe that I can help the Telstra board and management team achieve those objectives. Thank you.
JOHN MULLEN:
Thanks Nora. Right. So now we turn to the formal part of the reelection. So item 3A on today's agenda, which is to consider the election of Eelco Blok. As you've heard Eelco joined the board in February, this year as a member of our nomination committee. And over this last year, we've been recruiting some very talented telecommunications professionals, which greatly add to the wealth of experience we have on the board. Eelco has added to that significant depth, given his recent experience and the similar challenges facing operators all around the world. And he brings great value to the board as we continue to execute on our critical T22 strategy. So the board other than Eelco himself of course recommends his election. I will now take any questions you may have regarding Eelco's election. Do we have any questions? Yes, yes.
SPEAKER:
Chairman and introducing Joanna Richardson from Yarraville.
JOANNA RICHARDSON:
Thank you everyone. I'm OK. I really like the idea of the retention of corporate memory and experience balanced with the renewal of the board. I'm also interested in diversity across boards, not just of gender and age, but background. I'm a bit curious as to why we've gone to Europe rather than our closer neighbours in Asia, which is a very broad idea, but just what was the thinking behind going to the Holland? Yeah.
JOHN MULLEN:
Yes, certainly. So I can assure you, it's not an easy thing finding directors of the talent and capability of some of my colleagues here. We undertook a global search across Asia, Europe, and the United States. It, it is important to us that we try and get a balance because the three regions are very different. The United States in particular is a very dynamic, highly competitive, low regulated environment. Europe is a much heavier regulated environment, a lot more like us, and Asia's probably more emerging and sort of in between the two. We interviewed a number of very capable candidates. And for this position, Eelco was the outstanding candidate. Head and shoulders above the others that we met with. It wasn't necessarily a specific target that we had to have someone from Europe. What we did have to have was somebody who really understands the deep technological change going on in our industry. It is a kind of enormous change as you've heard, but technically it's extremely complicated and I'm the first to admit that myself, when management are presenting a very complicated technological issue, I don't have the skills to necessarily drill down into every last part of that proposal.
And it's very important that we have a number of directors who do have that experience and are able to do that. And Eelco certainly fits that bill. He has deep technical knowledge about our industry, which is absolutely critical. And you don't want your whole board to be all in Tokyo industry. You want a balance as you said, a diversity of backgrounds, which is what we're working on doing. We are cognizant that the gender ratio has dropped due to losing two female directors. We're in the process of rectifying that so that we will get ourselves back up to a much better level by the time we meet next year. Thank you. OK. If there are no more questions, then we will now vote on this item. The proxy and direct voting position is being shown on the slide behind me. As indicated in the notes of meeting, I intend to vote all available proxies on this item in favour of your Eelco's elections. So please now complete your vote for item 3A. Good. Thank you. Congratulations, Rilke. I now turn to item 3B, which is to consider the reelection of Craig Dunn.
As you heard again, Craig has been an on executive director since 2016, a member of the nomination committee and also fulfils an important role as chairman of the audit and risk committee. As I mentioned earlier, he's an outstanding director. He's a highly regarded business leader with significant expertise and experience in financial services, financial technology, and providing strategic advice for government and major companies. The board, other than Craig of course recommends his reelection. And I will now take any questions you have in relation to his reelection. Do we have any questions?
SPEAKER:
Yes. Chairman reintroducing, Sue Shields of the Australian shareholders association.
SUE SHIELDS:
Could Mr. Dunn expand on how, on reflection, his experience at AMP and Westpac adds to his contribution at Telstra?
JOHN MULLEN:
Yeah. Thank you for that. I might ask Craig to respond directly. I think it'd be a lot more fitting than coming through me.
CRAIG DUNN:
Yeah. Thank you, John. And, and thank you for the question. So I'm sure like others who've had responsibilities in leading or governing in financial services, given recent events, they've reflected very deeply on their learnings. And I've certainly done that. I touched on briefly in that in my address to the meeting, but just to go into a bit further detail to answer your question, the sorts of things that I've reflected on go to increasing a focus on non-financial risks. Also to making sure that companies have good and different procedures in place for vulnerable customers who often face greater challenges than sort of the broader customer base. To make sure that we have very good root cause analysis that goes around our customer complaints so we can learn from customer complaints and improve (INAUDIBLE) for customers. And also, I'd say, just making sure that there are very clear accountabilities for management in the day-to-day responsibilities for the organization. And I'm seeking to apply all those learnings as a director on the board and also in my role as chair of the Audit and Risk Committee.
JOHN:
Thank you very much. I think we have another question on (INAUDIBLE).
SPEAKER:
Yes, chairman. I would like to introduce Lee Kelton from Northern Rivers, New South Wales.
LEE:
Chairman, my comments really follow on from what I said earlier on. I have difficulty with this and the following re-election candidate in that they're both being part of a board that hasn't delivered value for shareholders. And I believe in board renewal, and I believe this is an opportunity to have a board renewal. And I see absolutely no reason why we should be re-electing members to a board that hasn't performed.
JOHN:
OK, well, Mr. Kelton, you're obviously entitled to your opinion. One thing I can assure you is we are undergoing board renewal, significant board renewal. If you look along at the table, here are a lot of relatively new faces. And as I said, by the end of the year, we'll have another two new faces. So actually, the issue is more the other way of keeping corporate memory, which was why I was so strongly recommending. I hear you, sir. But I think that your board is actually in a good shape. I feel it's the strongest board since I've been at Telstra and many other boards I've been on. I think this is a very strong board indeed, representing your interests. Number four, again, I think.
SPEAKER:
Chairman, I would like to introduce Peter Starr from Sydney, New South Wales.
PETER STARR:
Thank you, John. Through you, John, to Mr. Dunn, the concerns I have on behalf of the shareholders that I'm here representing myself is you were at AMP and the fallout, as we know from the royal commission and what's happened there. I just can't see how you can not shoulder some responsibility for that, given that you were the CEO and now you're seeking re-election here for the board. And I have to tell you honestly that I can't vote for you.
JOHN:
Thank you, Peter.
PETER STARR:
Thank you, John.
JOHN:
I would just make two quick comments. Firstly, Craig left the board...Left the AMP more than six years ago. And secondly, there is absolutely no allegation whatsoever being raised of anything improper on his part. All I can say is this is a Telstra meeting and a Telstra board. Craig is an exceptionally useful, diligent, and professional director on the Telstra board, and we would be far, far worse not having him on the board. So I and all of my colleagues 100% support his re-election. We think he is a man of great integrity and he brings a lot. Any more questions? Fine in that case thank you very much. I also intend to vote all available proxies on this item in favour of Craig's re-election, so please complete your vote now for item 3B. Thank you, congratulation Craig. I turn now to item 3C on today's agenda, which is to consider the re-election of Nora Scheinkestel. Nora has been a member of your board since 2010. As you heard, she's a member of the nomination and remuneration committees.
She's also a member of the Audit and Risk Committee, which she chaired extremely ably for close to seven years until earlier this year. She's an outstanding director and has served as chairman and director on a range of companies across various industry sectors and in the public, private, and government area. She continues to make a very significant and valuable contribution to our board, and, as I mentioned earlier, provides continuity in light of the changes of the board in recent times, and the board, other than Nora, unanimously recommends her re-election. I will now take any questions you may have regarding Nora's election well, please. Peter.
PETER STARR:
Thank you, John. Hi, Norah, how are you? I'm very glad that you decided to stay another term. I think it's important. All the proxies in my own personal votes will be voting for you. I think you've done an outstanding job. You were there when we were negotiating the contracts. If Sol Trujillo hadn't have staffed it up, Telstra would have built NBN. That's the reality of it for those who don't know. But thank you, Nora.
NORA SCHEINKESTEL:
Thank you.
JOHN:
Praise indeed, Nora. Thank you. I think that's it. Any more questions? No. Good. Thank you all for your questions. We've now finalized the discussion and the proxy and direct voting position is being shown on the slide behind me. Similarly, as indicated in (INAUDIBLE), I intend to vote all available proxies on this item in favour of Norris re-election. Please now complete your vote for Item 3C. It looks like it got ahead of me. So it's great. Congratulations, Nora. Great. I now turn to Item four on today's agenda, which is to consider the grant of restricted shares and performance rights to RCA Andy Penn under the Telstra FY119 executive variable remuneration plan as outlined on the screen behind me. Details of the proposed grants are set out in the expansion attached to the notice of meeting. In summary, the number of restricted shares and performance rights to be granted to the CEO was based on the dollar value of the CEOs EVP outcome. The CEO's EVP outcome was in turn determined based on the performance of Telstra over the 2019 financial year as against specific measures set by the board for that year.
Each restricted share is a fully paid ordinary Telstra share. These shares are restricted (INAUDIBLE) and the CEO will not be able to sell any shares until after the 30th of June 2021. Each performance right entitles the CEO to one fully paid ordinary Telstra share, but the CEO will only be able to receive these shares of Telstra relative total shareholder return ranks at the 50th percentile or greater against an ASX 100 comparator group over a five year period ending in June 2023. The CEO cannot trade any performance rights granted to him. The board, other than Andy Penn himself, excuse me, considers the grants of restricted shares and performance rights to the CEO to be appropriate in all the circumstances, and recommends shareholders vote in favour of items 4A and 4B. And I will now take questions on these two items. Mark (INAUDIBLE).
SPEAKER:
Sorry, it's me again, Mr. Chairman. Can you just clarify these performance rights are being issued based on a value of $3.73 roughly, is it?
JOHN:
It's on a VWAP of five days or seven days, I think.
SPEAKER:
According to the booklet... So there's a dollar value applied to the...
JOHN:
Yeah, $3.7332.
SPEAKER:
...to the award, and that's divided by the share price of $3.73.
JOHN:
Precisely to give the number of grants. Yeah.
SPEAKER:
I know this may sound a bit harsh, but again, when the CEO was appointed, the share price was about $6.50 in round terms. I would be a lot more comfortable if he was assessed on this bonus that he will get on the share value when he took over as CEO. Not drawing a line under the last few disastrous years and saying, let's just issue him right at a reduced level. I mean, to me, he should be judged on his performance since taking out...since taking office, as opposed to some arbitrary figure, which, you know, most of us wouldn't have been happy getting a $3.70 for our shares when we paid $6.50 for them. So I would just ask that maybe we reconsider the number based on what the share price was when he started having an influence on the share price of the company.
JOHN:
Look, I hear you, but his incentive is not on a share price target, it is on a range of metrics that we believe are the right metrics to drive a successful future for Telstra. Every year we go through those, there are quite a number of metrics that make up the EVP, both financial and non-financial. And it's against the success of those that ultimately a grant is given the share prices then just an arithmetic exercise. To calculate...
SPEAKER:
Mr. Chairman that's not an arithmetic exercise. We can talk about gymnastics in the remuneration system, but he is being given a number of shares based on a value which is well below the value of the shares when he took office. So you can talk about the metrics and everything else. The bottom line is the number of shares being offered under this system are based on a much reduced value in the shares in the share value.
JOHN:
The number of shares are based on the share price at the time the scheme is put in place and at the time the targets are set and if Andy delivers on all of those and the rest that are on his team and all of those metrics, obviously we anticipate the share price will rise. It may, it may not, but we can only judge Andy on the things that he can control himself, which, by the way, is a standard market practice across all of the industry. Thank you. Peter again.
PETER STARR:
Thank you, John, just for the benefit of the other shareholders in the room. I just want to point out that I did races in an email to Mr. Payne, and he did respond. And I have to say, John, that our leanings are with the previous speaker, but I can see that you do work hard Andy I know that for a fact. So I will be voting for...But as I said, John's already acknowledged that you know, the mum and dad shareholders really look at that share price, you know, and I know it's a big thing for mum and dad shareholders, as John's acknowledged. And just one other thing, John, while I'm here. I was just asked to mention for those who remember David Thodey, I keep in regular contact with him. He did ask to say hello to all the mum and dad shareholders as well. Thank you, John.
JOHN:
OK, I don't want to be seen to be pushing back, but somebody very eloquently said earlier and it was lovely when we were a monopoly. Monopolies are great things if you have them. They are very bad things if you're everybody else. The world, the world has moved on. Telstra is not the monopoly provider anymore. The NBN is here to stay. It has transformed the landscape. Technology is developing left, right and centre. There are new entrants. There's 5G. This is the real world and I understand the angst and concern of this new shareholder. But just to say I wanted to go back to where it was and be $6 and payout 100% of dividends. It's just not going to happen. We are in a dynamic, competitive world today and no amount of wishful thinking, looking back is going to help. We are where we are today. The responsibility of the board and the management is to try to move us forward from where we are today and deliver as much value to you as shareholders as we possibly can. And that's what we're trying to do.
Sadly, that will not please everybody and we can't turn the clock back. Thank you any more questions. Yes, number three.
SPEAKER:
Chairman, re-introducing Hans Witervane from Seymour Place. Thank you. Thank you again, Mr. Chairman. The previous speaker raised the question of the value of the shares and I believe that because today's dated the decision date, therefore the date of legal effect and the shares should be valued at whatever the market says today. You were fairly eloquent in terms of $6 (INAUDIBLE) which is what I fondly remember. But as you said, we can't go back. The value of the shares should be whatever the market says today, and I believe in legal terms today is when we decide and that's what the CEO should get.
JOHN:
Well, the shares are set at the price at the time the scheme is (INAUDIBLE) and you are being asked to vote on the issue of shares as at that point in time and the price that relates to that, it's not the share price as it is today itself. This was how long ago? Yeah. I mean, it's obviously this has been has to be worked out well in advance of an AGM and all the board has to approve the metrics, the incentives for the management for the forthcoming year. And these calculations are done at that time. And you as shareholders are then asked to ratify that, which you obviously have every right not to do so if you don't agree. OK. I think there are no more questions on that one. So the board...I'm sorry. We will therefore we finalized and we will therefore move to the voting in the proxy and direct voting position again should be being shown on the slide behind me. As indicated in last meeting I also intend to vote all available proxies in favour of the grants to the CEO. So please now fill in your voting cards for items, 4A and 4B.
Thank you very much. So I now turn to item five on today's agenda, which is to consider the adoption of the remuneration report for the year ending 30th of June 2019. In my opening address, the start of today's meeting, I tried to cover all the key aspects relating to remuneration at Telstra this year. I highlighted some of the key enhancements that we've made to the executive variable remuneration plan for the 2020 year to ensure it continues to best meet the overall objectives of our remuneration policy and delivery of T22 strategy, and aligns with creation of sustainable long term shareholder value. We've also, of course, had some quite considerable debate among shareholders here from the floor on this matter already. However, if there are any more questions, I will now take them on item five.
SPEAKER:
Chairman reintroducing Sue Shields. The Australian Shareholders Association supports the remuneration resolution, and we recognize that a comprehensive review and consultation has resulted in significant changes. Increase in investing period of the restricted shares from two to a four year period and the five-year relative total shareholder return on performance shares are high ground compatibility with ASA guidelines. And we thank you for including us in your consultation.
JOHN:
Well, thank you. Those are kind words, and we equally much appreciated the input we got from professional organizations such as yourselves and others. We did indeed engage very broadly, and we had some 44 meetings with major shareholder groups on this. And thank you for your kind words. Much appreciated. OK, I think...I'm sorry, number three.
SPEAKER:
Chairman re-introducing Scott Hunter from Melbourne place.
SCOTT HUNTER:
Yeah, before in justifying payments to Telstra stuff. You said something about sports, people that get paid more in game players and whatever. And these were just bowl kickers, bowl movers, button presses and Twitter influencers who take far more out of society than they're worth and what they put in that's irrelevant to what Telstra paid. But Telstra staff getting say for the CEO $6,000 a day and the 10 executives on Page 46 get over a million a year, which works out to a daily figure of $3,000 a day with the potential to double it. People would say that if they had a job like that, they're on a pretty good wicket. And the incentive to having a job like that and keeping it is to just keep it for one more day. And why do you need long-term incentives when you're rewarding them so well?
JOHN:
Well, thank you. I don't really know how to respond beyond what I've already responded many times to very similar questions. We absolutely recognize executive pay is a sensitive issue, but all we can do is to really diligently, do our very best to ensure that we get a balance between motivating and incentivizing the best management in the business and making sure that we represent shareholders interests at the same time. And I believe we do, we will never please everybody, of course, but I think we have found that balance as best we can.
SPEAKER:
Chairman, I'd like to...
JOHN:
Peter.
SPEAKER:
Chairman, I'd like to re-introduce Peter Starr from Sydney, New South Wales.
JOHN:
It would be easier if you come sit up here with me it will make it a lot quicker.
PETER STARR:
Thank you John just quickly it's probably good, Andy, that you don't make too many more appearances on the 2GB Ray Hadley Show. I think run the company. But he did alright, sir.
JOHN:
I take that as a compliment, Peter, thank you. Great. No more questions. OK. That means we have now finalized the discussion on Item five, the proxy and direct voting position on this item, as well is being shown behind me. And as indicated in the last meeting, I intend to vote all available proxies in favour of Item five as well. Please now complete your vote for this item. Shareholders based on the proxy and direct voting. Sorry positions displayed on the screen for Item five and the number of votes that have been informed are represented on the floor today. It is clear that more than 75% of the votes cast or to be cast on Item five will be cast in favour of the remuneration report. This means that the company has not received a second strike and as a result, shareholders are not required to vote on Item six. The conditional spill resolution item six, therefore, will not be put to the meeting. Shareholders, that concludes our discussion of all items on today's agenda. If you haven't already done so, please do complete your voting now.
Every vote's important. Attendance are carrying ballot boxes throughout the room, and ballot boxes are also located near the exits. The poll will remain open for a further 15 minutes to enable shareholders to cast their votes, and the results of the poll on items three to five will be available later today and can be obtained by visiting ASX or our websites. All items of business having been considered, I can now declare the meeting closed, subject to finalization of the poll. Thank you to all of those of you who viewed the AGM online. Thank you also to our microphone attendance, audiovisual and other support making today go so smoothly. Lastly, thank you very much to all of you for your attendance today, and I now invite you to join us for lunch in the foyer outside. Thank you very much.
The 2018 AGM of Telstra Corporation Limited was held on Tuesday 16 October 2018 at the Hilton Sydney Hotel, Grand Ballroom, 488 George Street, Sydney NSW.
Recording of the 2018 AGM held on Tuesday 16 October 2018 at the Hilton Hotel in Sydney.
The 2017 AGM of Telstra Corporation Limited was held on Tuesday 17 October 2017 at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre, 1 Convention Centre Place, South Wharf VIC.
Recording of the 2017 AGM held on Tuesday 17 October 2017 at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre.
PAULINE:
My name is Pauline (UNKNOWN), a Yorta Yorta woman with bloodlines connecting me to South Central Victoria, the home of five Kulin Nations. This acknowledgement of country is an important act of cultural respect, and I take this moment to honour the Elders who have lived and died for their culture. Elders who continue to carry knowledge and practice culture, articulating who they are in their own words and by their own definition. Standing right here, I acknowledge the Boonwurrung, the river Birrarung, Woiwurrung, Wathaurong, Djadjawurrung, and my great, great grandparents country, Taungurung. I acknowledge that I live and benefit in this country called Naarm, Melbourne. I'm kept nourished and connected and grounded. And for this, I'm grateful. Working within Telstra gives me the opportunity to embed cultural knowledge and listen for areas where we can transform together. We can drive change, embedding cultural knowledge. This is vital to who we are and how we do business. Because Telstra's business connects so many people in the far corners of this country, including our international relationships.
We are mindful that who we are and what we do, can have a ripple effect, creating impactful, positive change in people's lives. It's a lifetime commitment to look after our humanity, and we can't be complacent. We owe it to ourselves and to each other. I'm proud to say I'm of the oldest living culture in the world spanning 65,000 years. And you can imagine we've seen a few highs and we've seen a few lows, and we've taken a few risks. But we're still here. I guarantee we'll see a few more highs, we'll see a few more lows, and undoubtedly take a few more risks. That's not only a constant for us. It's a universal theme throughout human societies. I would also like to take this opportunity to extend this acknowledgment to all of you here today. And lastly, in his own words, humanitarian award winner Gunditjmara man Archie Roach says, Be careful when you walk through this land. A child was born here. Thank you and have a great day. (VIDEO STARTS) It's a magical time to be alive. Things we never imagined possible in our part of our everyday lives, cars that drive themselves, farms that run themselves, in cities that think for themselves.
To many, it's daunting, to others, it's the greatest opportunity of our times. That's us. We are technology optimists. We believe in the power of technology to help transform any business of any size in any location. Now, we have reimagined ourselves as a world-class technology company that empowers people to connect. Our network has always been exceptional. Now we're making it smarter, more intuitive, more attentive, so we can become the makers of the magic. Together, we can make billions of devices talk to one another. We can make our cities run like clockwork. Help our architects walk through buildings before they're built. Let our farmers know when it's time to water and help our front line stay safe. Together, we can help secure your most valuable information, and expand your business from Sydney to San Fran. And less time that takes to fly there. There is no one better placed to be Australia's world-class technology company. We have the history, the partnerships, and the resources.
Together, we will be the magicians. And together we will thrive. (VIDEO ENDS)
JOHN MULLEN:
Thank you, Pauline. Thank you very much for that acknowledgement of country, earlier. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. My name is John Mullen. It's my great privilege to be the chairman of your company. On behalf of my fellow directors, it's a pleasure to welcome you all here this morning. And I also extend a very warm welcome to the many shareholders joining us today online. We have a quorum, and I would therefore like to declare the meeting now open. And notice of the meeting was distributed earlier, setting out the business and resolutions to be considered at today's meeting, and I will take that notice as read. There are five items of business on today's agenda. Firstly, presentations by myself, and the Chief Executive Officer, Andrew Penn. Secondly, a discussion of our 2017 financial statements and reports. Consideration of the re-election of directors, consideration of the proposed grant of performance rights and restricted shares to the CEO. And finally, consideration of the remuneration report.
Voting on items three to five will be conducted by a poll, and that poll is now open. If for any reason, though, you wish to leave the meeting early, you can still vote by completing your voting card and placing it in one of the ballot boxes near the exits. For those shareholders who have registered to use the link vote app, it is also now open for you to lodge your votes electronically if you so wish. Let me now introduce my colleagues here with me today. So, with me here on the stage, Andrew Penn, our Chief Executive Officer, Damien Coleman, our Company Secretary, Warwick Bray, Chief Financial Officer, and my fellow members of the board. Can I also introduce Andrew Price from our auditors, Ernst & Young? Andrew is available to answer any questions that you may have on the conduct of the audit, or on the auditor's report itself. So, let me start by making some comments about Telstra's performance in the 2017 financial year. 2017 was a year of solid progress for the company. It was a year where we delivered our guidance to the market.
We grew income, earnings and profit on a continuing all like for like basis. On a reported basis from continuing operations, total revenue increased by 4.3% to 28.2 billion, and EBITDA was up 2% to 10.7 billion. And one of the most important measures for any company, though, is that it continues to attract new customers. And this year, Telstra added 218,000 new retail mobile services, and 132,000 new retail broadband services. In addition, we achieved 676,000 new NBN connections. Now, these results show that we are very much holding our own in what is an increasingly competitive and rapidly changing marketplace. This year, we also continued our important work to continue to reduce costs and boost productivity. We were able to reduce our underlying fixed costs by $244 million, and we remain on track to achieve at least 1.5 billion of productivity savings by financial year 22. In short, we still have a long way to go, but we are making good progress. And this year, the board announced the fully franked final dividend of 15.5 cents per share, bringing the total dividend for the financial year to 31 cents per share.
So, that combined with the 1.5 billion on market and off-market share buybacks that we completed during the year, means that we returned $5.2 billion to shareholders in the 2017 financial year. And that level of return was one of the highest made by an ASX listed company. Now, shareholders would also be aware, though, that this year we announced the change to our dividend policy. Because I know that this is so important to many of you, I would like to comment on that in some detail. In understanding why we took this decision, it's firstly really important to understand the context. Telstra today is a strong, well-run, and well-performing company. But like many companies around the world, we're also facing unprecedented change, and challenge. Our results this year were achieved in the most competitive market environment that I have seen in nearly 10 years as a Telstra director. For Telstra, those challenges have been driven by a number of factors, including intense competition in both fixed and mobile marketplaces, an exponential rate of change in technology and connectivity, and unprecedented growth and capacity demand.
A rapid acceleration in the rollout of the NBN, which will ultimately cost Telstra some $3 billion in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation. And the announcement that a fourth mobile network will shortly be launched in Australia. Those factors all underpin the board's decision this year to change our dividend policy. And I'm going to step through three of them carefully to help shareholders better understand why we took the difficult decision that we did, and why it is absolutely the right decision for the company. So, the first challenge that we're facing is the exponential rate of change in technology and the growing demand for connectivity. In Australia and around the world, digital technologies are now a primary engine for economic growth, and an increasingly central feature of most of our lives, and a catalyst for incredible change. I don't think there's any precedent for the scale of change that we're seeing, all of which is driven by the extraordinary pace of technological innovation.
No business at all is immune from direct or indirect impacts, and many are being disrupted. And disruption, of course, occurs where someone finds a better, quicker, easier or cheaper way of delivering a service or product. And that's what people are continually trying to do in every industry. And if we do not stay ahead in our industry, then it will unquestionably also be done to us too. 20 or 30 years ago, people thought little of having to wait a month or two for their phone to be connected. And those days are over. We're in the age of Amazon, the age of Uber, the age of Netflix. If you can't go online and get a product the same day, you simply go to another supplier. That's the type of fast, streamlined, easy experience we aspire to offer our customers. We want to eliminate frustrating and time-wasting visits to stores, the emails and telephone calls backwards and forwards, the delays and complications and frustrations. We receive around 135,000 customer service calls per day. And when I say we're committed to delivering a brilliant customer experience, we're not talking about reducing 135,000 calls to 100,000 calls.
We're talking about eliminating the need for as many calls as we possibly can every single one if that is possible. We're talking about being able to buy and activate a new phone within a few hours over the internet. We're talking about making Telstra a pleasure to deal with 100% of the time and never a frustration. Now, that is our aspiration. That is the sort of company we must become if we are to succeed in the future. We are making substantial progress towards that, but it is not an easy challenge, and we know that we still have a very long way to go. Now, in addition, these industry changes are also fundamentally altering the economics of the telecommunications sector. User prices have plummeted, but the average mobile subscriber price per megabyte falling 99%, between 2005 and 2013. And this is continuing to trend down as customers demand more value. At the same time, data speeds have skyrocketed, and today's 4G networks are 12,000 times faster at transmitting data than 2G was. And the next generation 5G, the technology, which Telstra will begin trialling next year, will be another 100 times faster, than 4G again.
All the while, demand is increasing dramatically. Last year, over 5,000 petabytes of data trebled over Telstra's fixed and mobile networks each day, 40% more than the previous year. And therefore, the volume of data that we carry is effectively doubling every 18 months to two years, where customers are expecting to pay less and less. I really cannot think of many other large established businesses in Australia, where usage of core products and services is increasing at such a pace. The second major challenge Telstra is facing is the rapidly accelerating rollout of the National Broadband Network. Shareholders will recall, the NBN is expected to have around a $3 billion negative impact on our earnings when it is fully rolled out. And put that number into context, that's the equivalent to the annual earnings of a major ASX company. The size of origin energy, or a CSL, or even a Qantas. It can take decades to build a business that size. But we don't have decades. The NBN rollout began to gather pace in 2013.
And over the past four years, about 30% of homes have been connected. But while it's taken four years to connect 30%, the NBN is expected to reach 85% connection in only the next two years. And that means in just two years, we expect to be facing the loss of 85% of the $3 billion of our earnings, and that is obviously very significant. Another additional fact that shareholders may not be aware of is that there are now 180 registered resellers of the NBN, of which Telstra is just one. So, competition levels have also increased exponentially. We currently enjoy a 52% market share, excluding satellite. But this gives you an indication of just how competitive the market has become and how profoundly the landscape is changing. The third challenge that Telstra is facing is the imminent entry of a fourth mobile network operator into the Australian market. TPG is and will be a formidable competitor, and that, there is absolutely no doubt. We do not underestimate the impact that this may have the effect on pricing, nor the fact that we must and most certainly will continue to invest heavily to maintain our mobile network superiority.
And continue to improve the experience that we offer our customers. To reiterate then, in an environment where competitive pressures are already intense, Telstra also faces unprecedented growth in capacity demand, an acceleration in the rollout of the NBN, with its implications on our earnings, and the imminent launch of a fourth mobile network in Australia. Any one of these issues on its own would be a significant challenge to any company, but all of them together represent a really unique challenge. That, then, is the context for the important changes that we have made to our dividend policy this year. So, with that background, let me just explain now, the new dividend policy itself. So, our new policy moves us away from a historical practice of paying out almost 100% of net profits, ie, returning everything that we earn to shareholders and not giving anything back for reserves against the future or for new growth opportunities. From the 2018 financial year, we will adopt an ordinary dividend payout ratio of 70 to 90% of underlying earnings, which is in line with global peers and is in line with other large local companies.
In addition to the ordinary dividend, we intend to return in the order of 75% of the net one-off NBN receipts to shareholders over time, through fully franked special dividends. These are the one-off receipts relating to the transition of our customers to the NBN. With the implementation of this new dividend policy, we expect the total dividend in fiscal year 18 to be 22 cents per share, fully franked. Then, while we cannot predict earnings out into the future, as a consequence of our new dividend policy in FY 18, the dividend has been reduced to a level where we would be disappointed if we were not able to maintain or even again, increase the total dividend over time as we seek to grow underlying earnings and the special dividends decline. This, of course, will depend on economic conditions at the time and on our ability to grow underlying earnings in order to support the ordinary dividend. Any decision about future dividends will, of course, always be contingent on our underlying earnings and will be made in accordance with our capital management framework.
Now, I'd like to say that changing the dividend policy was one of the toughest decisions the board has ever had to make. We spent many long hours debating it, many sleepless nights working through it in our minds, knowing full well, the impact that it would have on shareholders, and trying to arrive at the best balance between providing consistent shareholder returns and the strategic direction that the company must take. To have continued on the same course would also have put at real risk, or other great strength, which is our balance sheet and A bank credit rating. We believe it is absolutely fundamental to maintain our balance sheet strength in this challenging environment, so as to manage the business efficiently, effectively and invest for growth. And we must do that because of our potential competitors of the future. And not just the traditional Optus and Vodafone, but are also likely to be dynamic newer companies like Amazon, which does not pay a dividend at all, and which reinvest an evergreen cash flow in cheaper and better products.
Lastly, despite the dividend and policy change, I'd like to point out that Telstra's payout ratio and yields still remain at the higher end of ASX companies. And because we absolutely understand and appreciate the impact this policy change has had on our shareholders, we took the decision to maintain the 31 cent dividend for this full year and give advance warning of the changes, rather than just cutting the dividend overnight, as is usually the case. So, I don't like it. I know that you don't like it. But the world has changed, and it would have been irresponsible of the board not to take this tough but correct decision for the future. And it is then the future, in particular Telstra's future growth opportunities I'd now likely to focus on. I've had shareholders ask, why can't we just go out and find growth businesses to replace the $3 billion in earnings that we're losing because of the NBN, so we can maintain the dividend at previous levels? Well, firstly, that's very easy to say, and very hard to do.
As I mentioned earlier, the earnings that we are losing are more than very few ASX companies achieve in total, even after decades of existence. And to expect that we can suddenly just go out and create another $3 billion EBITDA business overnight is simply just not realistic. Secondly, I do not think that shareholders would appreciate our going out and spending billions of dollars to buy a business or businesses that would replace the lost earnings through acquisition just for the sake of making up the numbers. This would be very expensive. This could take us away from our core competencies, and a whole new areas of risk. And this could jeopardise the strength of our balance sheet. Instead, therefore, our strategy to grow the business, position it to meet the challenges and opportunities ahead, and to create long term shareholder value, is built on three strong pillars. Firstly, delivering much better customer experiences than we do now. Secondly, driving further value and growth from our core business.
And lastly, building new growth businesses close to the core. Now, this may sound a bit boring, but it is not. It is prudent, is well thought through, and it best leverages our strengths. Delivering brilliant customer experiences means offering customers simple, intuitive and increasingly digital ways to interact with us. And while our customer experience scores are excellent with big enterprise customers, we know that we fall down too often with consumers. And that's significant because one way or another, virtually everyone in Australia is a Telstra customer, whether directly as Telstra mobile user, fixed or broadband customer or indirectly through our wholesale relationships with other providers. And as I said, just now, despite our world-class networks and coverage, too many customers will have had a bad experience with Telstra or will know someone who's had a bad experience with Telstra. This has to be once and for all eliminated, and we are doing everything that we possibly can, to fix it.
If we do do this well, we will win more market share from our competitors, which will mean more revenue and more earnings should follow. Then driving value and growth from the core is about leveraging our strengths and networks and connectivity and making the best use of our skills, expertise and experience to deliver additional value. And if we do this well, our customers will be willing to pay more for better and better products and services. And lastly, building new growth businesses close to the core recognizes the opportunities that we have to expand with new products and new services in new markets. And if we do this well, we will increase our revenue and earnings from new but related areas and improve the retention of existing customers. Everywhere we look, there are these growth opportunities. 5G is coming with a huge range of new and upgraded opportunities. The Internet of Things, where there are nearly one billion intelligent sensors today in Australia and the market is forecast to be worth $5 billion in five years.
Driverless cars, drones, connected homes, artificial intelligence, machine learning, smart cities, smart agriculture and many, many more. And these are the opportunities that represent our future. But of course, as fast as these new technologies are developing, it's still going to take a few years before they are scale businesses that can replace the old legacy businesses that we are losing. So despite today's challenges, we are in a strong position as we look to grow our business. We have one of the best overall management teams in the industry and certainly the best that I have seen in my time on the board. We have an incredible mobiles business, which is, of course, built around the best network in the land. We deliver great earnings, have a strong market share and are counted as a world leader in our industry. We are the largest reseller of the NBN. Our network applications and services businesses grew income this year by 30% and has become a $3.3 billion business from a standing start just five years ago.
Our productivity program to a quarter of a billion dollars of underlying core fixed cost out of the business this year ahead of our target and is on track to deliver 1.5 billion of annual savings. And we continue to make targeted acquisitions in exciting new areas like cloud, workplace mobility, Internet of Things and Cyber Security. These new capabilities leverage our already world-class networks and will help us grow in the markets of the future. One thing we think is critically important, therefore, is that we do not allow a preoccupation with replacing the earnings lost through the NBN to be the defining point in our strategy. Our strategy is about doing what we do now much better to drive value from the businesses that we have, rather than starting from the premise of having to go out and replace the lost earnings overnight. But another way we're not going to do anything foolish just to plug that $3 billion gap. It is critical that Telstra makes bold choices and we will do that. But we have no intention of risking the company.
At the macro level, if we achieved a digital transformation of our company and deliver as good a customer experience as the new first-generation businesses that I've mentioned earlier, then we will transform our customer acquisition and customer retention. We will protect our balance sheet and we will build market share. And over time, these new markets will achieve scale and will be a major player in most of them. All of this, of course, will then lead to materially improved financial outcomes from our core business, as well as growth in the closely related markets of the future. Which should always going to be a better road to follow than starting new businesses and markets we do not know so well. Telstra remains a fantastic company with great people, with great assets and great technologies, and we have many opportunities to grow without taking excessive risk. In conclusion, then 2017 was a year of significant progress for Telstra, but also a year of significant change and challenge, and whether we like it or not, we have to accept that the world around us has changed dramatically and Telstra is having to change just as dramatically as well.
However, over our long history, we've actually used periods of change in technology and challenges in industry structure to grow a company and to move forward. Changing our dividend policy is just one change among the many that we will need to make as we enter the exciting new world of the future. Some we can control and some we cannot. But whatever the future brings, Telstra is an exceptional company with exceptional people and exceptional assets. There is absolutely no reason why we should not do just as well in this unknown world of the future as we have done in the past. And we continue to develop our capabilities, build our resources and make our network stronger, faster and better so we can continue to be at the cutting edge of companies delivering the promise. The digital age and as that digital age unfolds, we will be at the forefront and we will be better positioned than most of our competitors. Lastly, we will not forget who our shareholders are and the responsibility that we have to them.
We will continue to do everything that we can to deliver shareholder value through dividends, capital management, other value-enhancing activities despite the changes that are going on around us. In closing, then I really want to sincerely thank Andy Penn, the senior executives and the entire 32,000 strong Telstra team for their efforts in delivering the many achievements that I have described this morning. They have one of the most difficult tasks in business today, and I think they are doing a fine job. I'd also like to thank my board colleagues for their support and their strategic guidance. All of us feel very privileged to lead this great company. And lastly, I would like to thank you, our shareholders for your patience and support. With that, I'll now hand over to your Chief Executive Officer Andrew Penn to comment on our operations for the year in more detail. Thank you.
ANDREW PENN:
Well, thank you very much, chairman, and good morning, everybody. Can I also add my thanks to Pauline for that wonderful welcome to country and welcome here today? We value this opportunity to meet with you as shareholders to keep you across what we believe is a very exciting future for our company. To hear your thoughts and to address your questions, I would like to cover four things in my presentation this morning. Firstly, I will provide you with an overview of how your company performed in the 2017 financial year. Secondly, I will make some comments on the rollout of the NBN with a particular focus on what I feel are the critically important considerations and priorities for customers. Thirdly, I will comment on the progress that we are making in transforming your company to compete in this increasingly digital world. And finally, I will confirm guidance for the 2018 financial year. Turning then firstly to the financial results for 2017. 2017 was a strong year, and we are pleased to have delivered against their guidance and strategy in the context of a highly competitive and increasingly dynamic market.
Total income on a reported and guidance basis was up 4.3% to 28.2 billion dollars. Excluding the regulatory changes to mobile terminating access service or MTAS and the final access determination, FAD. Total income was up 5.9%. EBITDA was up 2% to 10.7 billion dollars on a reported basis and was up 4.5% to 11.2 billion dollars on a guidance basis. On a guidance basis and excluding the regulatory changes that I mentioned to MTAS and FAD, EBITDA was up 5%. Net profit after tax from continuing operations was up 1.1% to $3.9 billion. Earnings per share was up 2.8 per cent to 32.5 cents per share, and the board declared a final dividend of 15.5 cents per share, which was paid in September. This brought the total dividend for the year to 31 cents per share. Our number one objective, though throughout the year, was to improve the experience we provide to our customers. And while I know that there is still more that we need to do, I am pleased that we are making progress. Both strategic and episode net promoter scores, which we use to measure customer satisfaction, improved in the second half.
Up six points and two points respectively. Our mobile business performed strongly in 2017, and we saw continued strong customer growth across all segments. New mobile services were up 219,00, including 169,000 post-paid handheld customers. Retail fixed broadband services were up 132,000, and retail bundles were up 224,000. Almost 90% of our retail fixed broadband customers are now importantly on a bundle and the proportion of those who are on an entertainment bundle, which is increasing very fast grew more than 50% and now represents one-third of customers that do take a bundle with Telstra. As you heard from the chairman, our network applications and services business grew very strongly, with income up over 30% to $3.3 billion. This was driven by major contract wins and renewals, as well as growth in NBN commercial works. Within NAS, we achieved strong performances from our cyber security products, our unified communication products and from cloud business, where in particular we saw revenue growth of more than 50%.
During the year, we reduced our underlying costs by 3.5% or 244 million, which was ahead of our target. On top of this, we improve productivity in our new businesses, where we reduce costs by a further 68 million. Given this strong performance, we have increased and accelerated our productivity plans. We now intend to deliver our previous $1 billion net productivity target one year early in 2020. And we've also increased the target overall by a further $500 million and in total, therefore, we now plan to deliver more than $1.5 billion in net productivity or net cost out by 2022. The focus of our productivity work is to deliver a better customer outcome, though. And for example, this year we've been working with our assurance partners to increase first call resolution rates and through this achieved a 4% reduction in truck rolls. This year, we also further extended our mobile network with standard 4G coverage to 99% of the population. And many sites further upgraded to the new 4G X, which gives us twice the speed, and this it now extends to 90% of the population.
Finally, we also continue to make very good progress in the NBN market and added 676,000 new NBN connections taking our NBN market share, excluding satellite to 52%. But the rollout of the NBN is projected to now scale up significantly, and it is essential that during this period that the whole industry remains focused on ensuring the customers receive the best possible experience and at an affordable price because four million homes are due to be connected in the next two years alone. In this regard, there are three areas of critical importance for our customers. Firstly, the service experience. Today, the time taken to activate customers on the NBN can be considerably longer than for traditional broadband services that we activate today. This is due to the extra complex, the extra complexity that is involved. We are working closely with the NBN to assist them in streamlining our respective processes to ensure this becomes a more seamless experience for all customers. Secondly, not all customers are receiving the speeds that they were either anticipating or hoping for.
Now, this can be for a number of reasons. Critically available speeds are first determined by the underlying technology that NBN chooses to roll out. Whether this is fibre, whether it is HFC cable, whether it is ADSL and therefore copper or indeed other forms of technology. This choice has a material impact on the maximum speed ultimately, that will be available to customers, and it is a function of the rollout that the NBN determines. Once the maximum speed available, though, is determined by NBN's choice of technology in their area, the customer then chooses the appropriate plan from their retail service provider like Telstra. We call this person the RSP. The RSP must then make sure that they purchase the right amount of capacity from NBN, and this capacity is delivered through something known as CVCs. Now, the ACCC has recently issued guidelines to all our RSPs to ensure that they purchase sufficient CVCs, such that customers can expect that at least 60% of the maximum speed in their plan is available during the peak times of 7 to 10 pm.
At Telstra, our position has always been to provide the best possible network experience on the NBN. That is why we continually monitor the traffic and adjust our CVCs to meet demand. In fact, we installed robotic testers in our network some time ago to measure customer speeds to ensure that we are buying enough CVCs. There are, of course, other factors that can affect the speed that customer's experience. For example, in-home wiring and Wi-Fi configuration. Customers can find lots of tips on our website on how to optimise their broadband experience at home. We're also continuing to develop products and tools to help our customers. These include the latest gateways or modems with superior Wi-Fi performance. The Telstra home dashboard, which helps customers diagnose their own issues in the home. And we have an upcoming Wi-Fi solution that will help detect and automate, automatically optimise Wi-Fi performance for customers in the home. All of these, combined with Telstra's platinum service, are targeted to deliver the best possible experience for customers in an NBN world.
And if customers are still not experiencing what they anticipated, it is quite likely to be a fault in the NBN network or some other factor in which case they should contact us so that we can investigate and advise the NBN accordingly. The third and final factor affecting customers in the migration to NBN is affordability due to the significant costs associated with the rollout of the NBN, wholesale broadband prices in Australia from NBN are increasing by almost 100 per cent in the migration. This will increase by a further 20 to 25% over the next three to four years under NBN's plans. Now, NBN are currently conducting a review of its prices and it will be important in the long term that wholesale prices are set at a level which ensures affordability of broadband for all Australians. Let me now turn to the progress that we have made on our broader strategic direction. Telstra is a telecommunications company, a telecommunications company with more than 100 years of history, a history of connecting people and businesses in Australia and around the world.
We have always been a leader in innovation. We have always believed that technology can bring tremendous benefits for businesses, society and the nation. That is why we are always investing and always innovating. In the 1900s, Telstra built the first trunk telephone connections between Sydney and Melbourne. It was the end of the age of the Telegram. In the 1960s, Telstra late the first coaxial cables carrying telephone and TV, as well as satellite telecommunications and transmissions. In the 1980s, Telstra launched the first mobile phones in Australia, and in the 2000s we were the first to launch 3G and then again, the first to launch 4G. Many of these investments marked major transformational periods in technology innovation. We see another one now as the right and pace of change and the way in which the world is digitizing increases. In recognition of this, two years ago, we launched our vision, our vision to become a world-class technology company that empowers people to connect. There were two reasons for this change of emphasis.
Firstly, it is often said that today every business in every industry needs to be a technology company. But this concept has special meaning for us. It has special meaning for us at Telstra, and that is because the traditional worlds of telecommunications and computing are converging. What I mean by this is that there is no technology innovation that is happening today that is not intended to be connected. From drones to driverless cars, cloud computing to online banking, e-commerce to the Internet of Things. All of these applications have one thing in common they rely on high quality, fast, reliable and increasingly secure telecommunications networks. We are an organisation with a long history and deep skills in network and electrical engineering. A world leader, we have applied these skills to build the best telecommunications network in Australia. But to support these technology innovations, these new applications and services, we need to build new skills in new areas, in software engineering, in data science, in artificial intelligence and in quantum computing.
And that is what we are doing. The second reason for this change of emphasis is that these applications and services are driving significant data growth on our network. For example, streaming services such as Netflix, as the chairman referenced earlier. Telecommunications globally, telecommunications companies globally have been investing tens of billions of dollars over recent years so customers can enjoy downloading high definition movies and TV shows from streaming services like Netflix. Today, Netflix has a market capitalization and is worth more than $100 billion. However, the telecommunication companies around the world who make this experience possible have not captured value to anywhere near the same extent, and this has reduced returns on invested capital across the telecommunications industry globally. But we should not see this as a threat. We should see it as an opportunity. That is why we are technology optimists. But if we're going to take advantage of this opportunity, we must lead in the future, not only in our network, but also in offering the best applications and services on our network.
That is why our vision is to become a world-class technology company that empowers people to connect. As you heard from the chairman, though, we also need to move fast. We need to accelerate our change. Our world is not standing still. We are seeing increased competition. We are seeing increased digital disruption and we are experiencing the unique dynamic of the NBN, which has the impact of reducing our EBITDA by approximately $3 billion. It is against this background that we made two critical decisions. Firstly, we have increased our level of investment by $3 billion over the next three years, which I will talk about more in a moment. And secondly, as you heard from the chairman, we are implementing a new dividend policy where we will retain some capital to invest in the future and maintain balance sheet strength and flexibility. It was a tough decision, and we do not underestimate the impact on you as shareholders. But it's an important decision. It's about setting up the business for success in the future.
It's about giving ourselves the flexibility to invest and to compete effectively.
ANDY:
In our history, it is is pivotal moments like this that we have made important decisions to invest in our differentiation and move to the next technology first and fast. We did this with 3G. We did it with our next gen IP network. We did it with 4G and we're doing it again now with the $3 billion of incremental investment we are making and it is targeted at achieving a step change in our customer experience. We're investing in the network of the future. With data on the network growing at around 40% per annum, we will need five times the capacity of today's traffic by the early 2020s. This is about building the foundations for the next generation of the network. It's about 5G. It's about the platform for the Internet of Things, and it's about new standards in redundancy and resiliency. The second area of major investment under the program is in digitization. New companies are changing the nature of experiences that our customers are experiencing, and we need to improve ours. We also need to improve the digitization of our core operating environment.
Through these investments, we expect to deliver a step change in our customer experience, an incremental EBITDA of $500 million dollars per annum from 2021 and we have made good progress on achieving this and achieving our vision. While I know we have more to do, I would like to take a moment to step back and recognize some of the progress that we have made. Firstly, we have simplified our business and our strategy, and we are aligning our new investments much more closely to the core as we did with our acquisition of Pacnet, Readify and Kloud. We're also investing in continuing to lead with the best network and in the applications and services on the network for our customers. Secondly, we're accelerating innovation in the company through Telstra Ventures, through Moradi, through Telstra Labs, which now includes hardware and software labs, Australia's first open IoT lab, a 3D printing lab and collaboration areas for our partners and our customers. This year, we were ranked number one in the ASX 50 for innovation in the Australian Corporate Innovation Index.
Thirdly, we're making progress in building the capabilities that we will need for the future. For example, we are working to meet the ever growing, ever changing risks associated with cybersecurity. In Australia, the rate of cyber crime has doubled over the last 12 months. This year, we've added significantly to our existing capabilities through the establishment of new security operation centres, and they support our global network of more than 500 cyber security experts that work within the company today. Fourthly, we are delivering new market leading, digitally enabled applications and services. In addition to monitoring our own network and our own operations, these new security centres work in junction with our digitally enabled managed security services, enable us to monitor, detect and respond to security incidents for our enterprise customers, and our future plans are to bring new products to market, which will further extend these capabilities to consumers and small businesses with enterprise grade cyber security protection from unwanted and malicious online traffic for everybody.
We've also launched the Telstra program or network to our enterprise customers, which enables them to dynamically manage their network and their cloud requirements digitally. Where it used to take six months to stand up a very complex set of services for enterprise customers to achieve this, customers can now do it for themselves digitally in a matter of minutes. We're also launching new offers for consumers. Telstra TV provides a fantastic, digitally enabled media service for customers. With almost 1 million services already in the market, we will be launching Telstra TV2 next week with an extensive new format, including the integration of free to air and universal searching. Last month, we also launched Mobile Belong, this builds on the success of belong in the fixed market in attracting new broadband customers with simple, no frills offers. And to support all of these digital enabled offers, we are leveraging our global relationships with world leading technology companies. We have important partnerships with Google, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, IBM, Cisco, Ericsson, Tesla and many others, bringing the best technology globally and combining it with the best network in Australia for our customers.
The fifth area that we're making very significant progress is in exactly that, the network where we are improving resiliency and redundancy and building some of the critical platforms for the future. We are well progressed in building the foundations for the next generation of mobile technology, 5G. And what sets 5G apart from earlier generations is its extremely low latency, enabling the time between a request for data being sent and that data and that message being received to be in the single milliseconds. As a consequence, 5G will enable revolutionary new automaton technologies, including autonomous driving. As a leader in setting telco standards globally, Telstra will be hosting 3GPP, which is the global standard setting body on the Gold Coast next year. At this meeting, we expect many of the global standards for 5G to be discussed and progressed. We have also commenced the transmission or rather the rollout of our optical transmission capability. This is the backbone of the network around the country that carries the consolidated data from all of our networks.
These investments will give us the capability to increase speeds to up to more than 100 terabytes per second in our call for both undersea and overseas cables. And finally, on the network, we recently launched Cadmium one. This is the network platform for the Internet of things that you heard the chairman talk about. It enables millions of low power devices and sensors to be connected. And it's important because in the future, everything that can be connected will be connected. We have now extended this platform across our 4G network with more than 3 million square kilometres of coverage across the country. It will support applications in logistics, agritech, mining and resources, retail, health care and many other sectors. Through these investments, therefore, not only do we have the largest, the most reliable and the fastest network in Australia. We also now have the smartest network in Australia. In summary, this is a very significant program of investment. The positions are strongly for the future.
And while the operating environment will no doubt be tough over the next two to three years, for the reasons that both the chairman and I have already highlighted, these investments will support our core business and open up valuable new opportunities for growth in the future. Before concluding, let me reconfirm guidance for the 2018 year. In 2018, we expect income to be in the range of 28.3 billion to 30.2 billion and EBITDA to be in the range of 10.7 billion to 11.2 billion. Guidance for EBITDA is after absorbing incremental restructuring costs of 200 to 300 million, which are associated with the increase in our productivity targets. We expect net one-off nbn DA receipts less than net costs to connect for customers to be in the range of two to $2.5 billion. We expect to spend capex in the range of 4.4 to 4.8 billion, or approximately 18% of sales. Finally, we expect free cash flow to be in the range of 4.4 to 4.9 billion. And of course, as is usually the case, the basis on which we provide guidance is detailed in the footnotes to the documents that were lodged with the ASX this morning.
So let me summarize before I hand back to the chairman. In 2017, we demonstrated strong financial performance and delivered against our guidance. We continue to grow our customer numbers and deliver strong performances in mobiles ness and productivity. We are on track in our transformation, and whilst we have more to do, we have delivered important new capabilities creating the network of the future. We made an incredibly important but difficult decision to introduce a new dividend policy. And finally, we lift our level of aspiration in relation to productivity and we will deliver more productivity and we will deliver it sooner. There is no doubt that the operating environment has become more challenging, with significant data growth, increased competition, digital disruption and the migration to the NBN over the next two to three years. Against this background, the decisions and the investments we are making are critical to ensure our success in the future. We are confident that we will not only strengthen and differentiate our core business, but they will also open up new opportunities for growth for us in the future.
The ultimate mark of success, however, will be the quality of experiences that we provide our customers and above all else, that is what underpins our strategy, guides our actions, directs our investments and defines our future. We are working to take Telstra to the next level to set a new standard for excellence, to become a world class technology company that empowers people to connect. I would like to finish by thanking the whole of the Telstra team for their hard work. I would also like to thank the chairman and the board for their support and guidance. Thank you again for your time this morning and I will now hand back to the chairman. Thank you.
JOHN MULLEN:
Great. Thank you very much, Andy. So there are four remaining items of business in front of us, and I will shortly introduce and invite questions on these items, but before I do, I'll outline the question of voting procedures for today's meeting. When you registered this morning, you would have been given a card. Yellow cards are for shareholders who may speak and vote. Blue cards offer shareholders who may speak but not vote. You will need your card to ask a question or to re-enter the meeting. We're pleased to offer shareholders who are attending the meeting in person here today a new way to lodge their vote using their mobile phone or tablet device. And if you've registered to use the new Link Vote app at the meeting today, your yellow card will have a green stripe across it as you will be logging your vote directly by using the app. If you have any questions about how to use the Link Vote app during the meeting, please speak with one of our staff located in the room here and the shareholder registration area outside wearing large Telstra voting badges who will be happy to assist you.
I will introduce each item and then invite questions from the floor. There are several microphones located in the room that side and that side. If you'd like to ask a question, please move to the reserve seating area behind one of the microphones. Please show your card to the microphone attendant and give your name. As a courtesy to all shareholders, please also state your affiliation if you are not here today in your personal capacity. The microphone attendant will invite you to the microphone when your turn comes. In the interest of all shareholders present, though, please, please ask only one question at a time. Keep your questions and comments to no more than two minutes to allow as many shareholders as possible to speak. If your question relates to director re-election or to the allocation of equity, to the CEO or remuneration that Telstra, please ask your question when we come to those items of business later in the program and please ensure that your questions are relevant to shareholders as a whole.
If we can't answer your question fully here today, we will aim to provide you with a response after the meeting. Also, if you have an individual, customer or shareholder issue, please speak with one of our customer service staff who will be able to assist you. They, too, are located in the room here and in the customer service area outside wearing Telstra shirts. There are then three items requiring a shareholder vote today. Shareholders who are using the app to lodge their votes electronically, Please follow the prompts on your device to log your vote. For shareholders voting with the yellow card, the voting boxes are on the back of your card. Please complete these boxes on your card to log your vote. We have received proxies from approximately 31,060 shareholders and direct votes from approximately 15,790 shareholders. The votes recorded for and against each item will be shown on the slide behind me at the conclusion of the discussion of that item. The four numbers displayed will include proxies received and available to be voted by the chairman of the meeting.
Telstra Share Registrar was Fran Kelly of Link Market Services Ltd will act as returning officer in relation to the poll and the results of the poll will be available later today on the ASX and on our websites. A light lunch will be served at approximately 12 noon. However, if the meeting is still underway at that time, we will not be adjourning the meeting for lunch. So I now turn to Item two on today's agenda, which is to discuss the company's financial statements and reports for the year ended 30th June 2017. Now, this item provides shareholders with the opportunity to comment on and ask questions about our financial statements, reports, as well as the business operations and management of Telstra. You may also ask questions of our auditor. If you have a question about the 2017 results or any general questions about your company, including the outcomes of our Capital Allocation Strategy Review and our new dividend policy, this is the time to ask your question. So I now invite shareholders to move to the microphone and to ask any questions you may have on this item.
I think we're just getting a question coming over here. Microphone one.
SPEAKER:
Chairman, I would like to introduce Michael Ordinaria.
MICHAEL:
Good morning, Mr Chairman. I've got a very simple question. Is there any chance that we can have quarterly updates of our financial results rather than six monthly updates?
JOHN MULLEN:
The reporting standard in Australia is six monthly, and that's what we will continue to do. However, the company does issue from time to time updates on matters of importance or where disclosure is required. So there will never be a period where we're keeping back information that is not disclosed to the market.
MICHAEL:
Some of the banks offer quarterly results. I mean, I wouldn't expect like a full annual report, but it's nearly seven months before we know what's going on at the moment with just about four months into a half year. And as far as I'm concerned, we don't get told enough. There's very few updates during the six monthly period, and I was wondering whether we can get a sales update or just some general notification every three months. It's not too hard or a difficult task.
JOHN MULLEN:
Well, the beginning of each year we issue guidance which tells the market what we expect to happen. If there's any deviation from that substantial material deviation, then we make a further announcement to the market and disclosure. So if we're not tracking, as we've said we are, then you will know. So I don't agree that there can be a period, a long period where you just don't know what's happening in the company. It's either proceeding as per our guidance or if it isn't, then we will make a disclosure to that effect to the market. Thank you. Microphone three.
SPEAKER:
Chairman, I would like to introduce (UNKNOWN) from Melbourne. Mr Chairman, I want to ask you a question if you permit me to, but one of the (INAUDIBLE) regarding the financial statements. Telstra used to be a good company but is not as good as used to be. So you never justify how you manage to get from five point plus per share to three plus at the moment. Next, the report you presented to us was more wish than a play on how to improve things which will result in financial results. And the next one is the problem with Telstra, which people they go away from here is the training of the base of Telstra. If you go to one shop and Telstra to pay a single bill takes you up to one hour. And if you have a problem like I used to have just to be alright, my bill, my phone bill took me nine months going everywhere and no one to fix it. So how can you be a good company? The same attitude in its outside. I tried to talk to two of your employees, which they told me very arrogant one of them that they are an IT and show me because I told them something regarding the communication and efficiency of Telstra, and one of them make a indecent, I would say, just to go in and that's it.
We work somewhere. The problem is with Telstra is you have no service which people like to have. If you have a problem, you get nowhere, nowhere, where to do, how to solve it. There is no plan, but looks like you are more than the central committee of the Chinese Communist Party over there. Doing what? All nicely coming to work, getting the money, but no results. And if you are keep blaming that Australia, it's a big country and it's very hard to be competitive, I don't think it is still valid today because the signals and all digital doesn't come by donkey, come by network, which you may not have it. Thank you.
JOHN MULLEN:
Thank you. It's the first time that I've been likened to a member of the Chinese politburo, but my education continues. So a number of points in your question, I think. Firstly, the share price. Look, obviously we don't control a share price. The share price is impacted by lots of factors outside our control. What we can control is the business itself day to day, and then we have to let the share market make its own evaluation as to how we're going and...
SPEAKER:
As to the future. We have a very clear strategy of what we want to do with a company, where we're going. We've got a number of big initiatives, important initiatives that we've announced today, to offset that three billion, which is causing a lot of concern, the productivity program, one and a half billion of savings, that will come from that, the strategic CapEx program should deliver another 500 million of EBITDA by FY21 and a whole lot of activity going on every day in mobiles and other areas. So I think all we can do, is management team and the board is to ensure that we have the right strategy, stick to it and measure the delivery of the company against those objectives. Your second point about service. Look, we are acutely aware and I think I tried to spend some time on that in my speech, and I know Andrew Power, chief executive officer, did the same. We are acutely aware that particularly in the consumer area, we do not yet meet expectations of where we would like to be and where our market would like to be.
In the enterprise area, where we create the experience where we we have people on hand to manage a customer's issues. We actually do extremely well. So clearly, our systems, our networks of technologies can do the job where we're dealing with our some 17 and a half million mobile customers. It is difficult to get that right every time, every day, but that we absolutely understand is the key to success. If we are gonna succeed as a company in the years to come, we have to become like these new companies. We mentioned the Amazons and Apples and Ubers where customer service is just a byword for their existence. We are absolutely committed to that. Andy and the management team spending $3 billion extra of capital to try to deliver those service improvements and digitise our network. So Sir, I hear you loud and clear. We are embarrassed. I don't like standing up in front of you knowing that there are service issues out there. We are working on them. We are making progress, but it's gonna take a bit of time yet.
As to your particular issue, if somebody didn't give you the answers that you wanted outside, please see one of the other representatives or even myself afterwards, and we will address your question. Thank you. With your permission. One quick one, you don't have to answer. How much cost a glass of water for us to have outside? How much we're gonna charge you for the glass of water? Or how much (CROSSTALK). I didn't know we don't have any water, but I'm sure that can be rectified. (INAUDIBLE)` Sorry. (INAUDIBLE) Yeah. There are a number of water stations in this room. Actually, it's just been pointed out to me. So over there. I can see one another, one over there, quite close to you. Microphone four. Chairman. I would like to introduce Scott Hunter.
SCOTT HUNTER:
Good morning. I've got a few points to make. With Telstra's financial performance, $28,000 million in income reduces to $4,000 million in profit, so 28 becomes four. Telstra has the worst share price performance in the past three months on the stock exchange, in terms of pricing calls from home or public phones to mobiles or (UNKNOWN) a $1 a minute, including an 80 cent connection fee. This is far too high. However, unlimited data fee of $30 per month, or $1 a day, is far too low. In fact, some people give their children a fine, and they just make unlimited data calls as a child mining service for $1 a day, I don't think children should be playing around with an adult communication services as a form of playtime. Seven out of every 10 people seems to be using their phones, all their waking hours, making calls or text messages or whatever. However, this doesn't seem to be converting into revenue for Telstra, particularly other companies that their entire business is based around the internet and they're making substantial profits.
Telstra doesn't seem to be getting a big enough slice of the profit. Public phone boxes seem to be disappearing and vanishing quickly. These are needed for emergency calls, and if they're not there no one can make them. Your staff don't seem to understand Telstra's fees, practices and policies. Two examples of this is, to get a home phone service reconnected, I ask the price of that at three separate Telstra shops and was given three separate quotes, $30, $50 and $80. Either two or three of them are completely wrong and they should be able to get the exact price right. And I would consider even $5 would be a substantial fee just to flick a switch and get the phone put back on when the wiring's still there. Second example is, when I was handling a (UNKNOWN) estate, the phone bill came coming out in the dead person's name, even though it had been changed half a year ago, the staff said when I rang up to complain, the staff said that they can only talk to the account holder. When I said they deceased, they said, sorry, I can't help you.
Was there anything else and hang up? Your foreign staff can't comprehend Secondary school Australian English, especially words such as pro rata or backdated? I don't know what they mean. Not only that, these staff have Australian people's jobs, and if there's 2,000 staff overseas, that means there's 2,000 Australians who never get the opportunity to work for Telstra to gain employment income that they can use on mobile phone services or whatever else often, which is about on a monthly basis, there are people ringing up claiming to be Telstra's staff. They're obviously not. They've got a foreign accent and they're trying to gain access to one's computer. This is attempted fraud on the company and should be investigated thoroughly, and there should be a number that a member of the Telstra customer can ring, and say that I've just had a call I don't believe is from your staff. Are you able to trace it? And you should be able to track down these people and get it stopped. And in terms of Foxtel, nine out of 10 people don't watch it, you own a broadcasting company and you need to broadcast programs people wanna watch, not just reruns of rerun reruns.
You can get them on the TV you don't have to pay for, just buy them from a library.
SPEAKER:
How many Foxtel's (INAUDIBLE)
SCOTT HUNTER:
Until. (APPLAUSE)
SPEAKER:
Well, Mr. Hunter, a lot of data there. I'm not quite sure what all the questions were, but let me try and take two or three of the things that you mentioned and respond to them. Firstly, the flow through from 28 billion of revenue to net profit of four, that in that order of magnitude, I don't actually see whether, I understand the criticism of that. That's quite a strong performance. That's very much in line with what we committed to the markets to deliver. Share price performance itself, I think I've already answered to the previous questionnaire. It's not in our control. What we do is manage the things that are in our control as best as we can. You mentioned about core costs being too high, I think in data costs being too low. This is an extremely competitive market. We have some very capable and able pricing teams who are continually adjusting prices to ensure the maximum return for the company balance with competitiveness in the market. And we do remain competitive. You mentioned the lack of conversion of volume to returns, and that's a very good point.
That is something I think the chief executive Andy referred to, the Netflix is of the world and the over the top, companies have benefited far more than the telecommunications providers who are actually providing the bandwidth to deliver these services. And we are continually offering more and more data and more and more services to people for the same price or only a slightly increased price. So that is a concern for the whole industry. And that's why, again, we have to put our maximum effort into reducing our cost and into improving our customer service so we can charge for the work that we carry. You mentioned there were 2,000 staff overseas. We actually have a lot more than that overseas. Remember we also have, we're in 20 countries, we have large overseas businesses and those people work in those countries running those businesses. So yes, we have some call centres offshore, but to think that we could just relocate everybody who's running an international business to Australia is just not practical.
You mentioned fraud calls. Yes, that's a concern to us. Every company goes through it. I get those calls myself so does every one of my colleagues and pretty well, everybody in an industry gets calls and phishing emails and the like. It's a constant battle for the whole world community, certainly Australian community. It's not peculiar just to Telstra, but if you are receiving things on a repetitive basis, then please do alert us. We will do our best to help. But these people are extremely adept at using millions of phone numbers that are recycled all the time. So tracking them down is actually very difficult. And lastly, you said, I think of Foxtel nine out of 10 people don't watch it. I'm not quite sure why you'd say that, there are two and a half million active users of Foxtel and it's by far the largest cable provider in Australia. So I hope that touched on the majority of your points. Thank you again for the question. Microphone three. (INAUDIBLE) I'm sorry, I can't hear. (INAUDIBLE) The question was about the deceased state.
Obviously, it's extremely embarrassing when something like that does happen. It's very rare, but yes, we do make mistakes. When that happens, we go out of our way. Obviously, if it's brought to our attention to try to address it and you'd like to give us more information on that particular matter, we can try to follow through on it. So I apologize on behalf of the company for the sort of errors. Microphone three, please. Thank you, chairman. I'd like to introduce Bala Krishna from Brisbane.
BALA KRISHNA:
Good morning Mr. Chairman and hello to your Board members. I'm 81, 82 years of age, I reside in Brisbane, but I decided to make this long trip in order, I think I feel what I need the board members to know and be aware of because half the problem is that, you don't give us Telstra bills on time. And I'll come to that later on. Is not delivered at my house, and now Telstra tells me that I'm going to get into the computer and I'm going to print it out. I mean, that's the joke. Every other company sends me bills home, you're asking me to get into my email computer and ask me to print my own statements, how? All you got to do is have a good look at myself and you think I can do all those things? No, I can't. I'm speaking on behalf of 151,76 shareholders, because that's the holding I now hold in my hand. (INAUDIBLE) holdings and I hold 151,576 shares. That's my confidence in Telstra. Telstra is a fantastic company. There are no two questions about it. I know you have your hard moments, but at the same time, I just wonder now you're talking in terms of cutting down the dividends and so on and so forth.
How much do y'all actually cut down on your, your payments? So it's good to bring that out for the change. I'm not trying to be funny, or I'm trying to pick on you, but listen, we own the company. So we also want something in return and we have the confidence. So changes are happening and we need to have a look at it. And some of the problems that I have personally have, except is that for (INAUDIBLE) chairman, I accept your exceptional people, is an exceptional company and I think you have my support all the same. As I mentioned to you, they then started asking me to pay my own bills. No, sir, I'm not going to do that. If the bill is not delivered at my post box, I'm not going to pay you, I pay it when it arrives. I got into the internet, I mentioned that several times, but nobody's paying any attention to it. Now you're asking senior citizens like myself who are 81 years of age to do my own troubleshooting and solve problems. Is that a joke? How do you expect me at, did my age go into a computer and start troubleshooting and trying to solve those problems?
I ring and ask you all for help, because I believe that's one of your functions to do that. So I think you must really look at the point where you really help some of the older people, as against the younger people who can do things like that. Now, we had a wonderful guy at the Stafford City Shopping Centre. He was a very dedicated man, he was a Telstra shop owner, and I watched there how often he helps people. He spends a lot of time, he's a dedicated Telstra supporter. And all of a sudden the shop has been closed down. And he a man who really spent a lot of his time to help Telstra customers. He's the other day, he was in tears unable to explain why that has happened, and he's now being thrown out. And so now they're still asking me to go all the way to (UNKNOWN). (UNKNOWN) is so far away, but I managed to drag myself into Brookside, there my mobile phone was not working. I make a call and as I'm speaking, get cut off. So I went and told that guy say OK. He took that. He made a call here and there, it worked.
And say no, it's working, it's fine. I said, now, listen, I won't come all this way if my phone is actually working. I've come here. He said, No, I'm sorry. I can't do anything more than that. If you want, I'll take the phone and I send it to the company. Let them investigate that. Surely, Mr Chairman, that's not what you do. It's your problem. Please try to help us too. And the dividends, I hope that there is a fair, fair look at that before somebody talks about cutting down dividends. Dividends are for all the people, not myself, something that is very important and I'm prepared. I'm not joking here. I'm giving all my dividends and all of my income to poor people who really can't have food. So I hope that you will also try to do, remember that we are all young. We make a whole heap of money and you come to an old state like myself where money is meaningless to me. I got plenty of money, and I'm honest in saying that I want to now share the money with poor people. And I feel that I really, by coming here, I sincerely feel that I hope you'll do something about what's happening about Telstra bills, about the older generation, please.
Thank you, chairman. (APPLAUSE)
SPEAKER:
Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you for making the effort and taking the trouble to come here. We appreciate it and thank you also for the courtesy of your question. Now there are a number of points, which I hope I've noted. I will try and respond to them. Firstly, regarding your bill, it's my understanding that as a pensioner, you can request a paper bill free of charge and the company will do that. So if that's not happening for you, we have some reason it hasn't worked. Again, please see one of the Telstra staff here today and we will get that fixed for you today. That should not be an issue. (INAUDIBLE) I'm afraid I can't hear anything. And you then talked about reductions, I guess, in board and management fees. So the board fees are set benchmarked across the ASX 20 companies and they are fixed. Management fees very much move with performance. And as you will have seen, the aggregate pay of our senior management team fell by 27% this year. The other thing we're doing, is we're also seeing as we're moving to a new remuneration scheme, which the chairman of the remuneration committee will outline to you shortly, where 65% of senior management's earnings will be in shares, much higher percentage than before, and also over a longer vesting period, which really aligns, we believe, management with shareholders as go shareholders fortunes go management.
You mentioned then around having to do your own troubleshooting and no, you shouldn't have to do your own troubleshooting. Of course, that is our responsibility. And again, if you would see one of our representatives and explain what your particular issue is, we will do our very best to fix it now here, while you are here today. And lastly, the dividend, obviously, we absolutely understand and empathize with the concern that you have over dividend. As I try to explain in my speech, we spent a very long time researching it. We did analyse it to your question and every which way to try to land on what we thought was the best balance between shareholder returns and maintaining the financial integrity of the company. And that's why we made the decision that we did. But thank you again for your question and thank you for coming. Microphone three again, I think. Chairman, I'd like to introduce Lynne, (UNKNOWN) from Melbourne.
LYNNE:
Good morning, Mr. Chairman and Mr. CEO and members of board. I was listening to your presentation about, you know, managing Telstra, and I will try to understand perhaps the complexity of managing cooperation of telecommunication corporation, that is not easy to do so. With, as a shareholder, with prices of Telstra shares down, with dividends being cut and with the, as issues that have been brought up by other Telstra shareholders just a while ago. And also with, you know, the costs and expensive, it being very expensive to use Telstra products and services, I'm just wondering if you would seriously consider offering Telstra shareholders a discount to be able to, you know, for using the mobile and internet services because I'm sure that there's a lot of us who are here who feel that, you know, we may not be able to afford it. And I'm sure that there's a lot who are actually using the competitor's service instead of being retained as a Telstra customer. So I think that if you are able to offer some discount for Telstra shareholders, and I think that may be able to help to have a customer retention as well for Telstra.
Thank you.
SPEAKER:
Thank you for that question, too. We do not offer a discount to shareholders in general, but we do offer quite extensive discounts to pensioners. I believe some 700 and or nearly 800,000 people do benefit from discounts off our services and for those in hardship, or just simply a pensioner status. So we do make a serious effort to help those who find it difficult to use or pay for our services. Thank you. Microphone four. Thank you, Chairman. I would like to introduce Sam Bonica.
SAM BONICA:
Good morning, Mr. Chairman. My question is around the share buyback that was conducted. Today, this morning, you mentioned that it was one of the largest share buybacks in ASX history. I question the value of that because normally when a company does a share buyback, the dividend actually goes up.
SPEAKER:
So for the future, perhaps the board could consider paying out a special dividend instead and forget about share buybacks in the future. Thank you. Thank you, Mr.(UNKNOWN). This one obviously is always a topic of debate when we engage in capital management programs. Not everyone has the same view, but we do, we believe, respond to the overwhelming majority of views, which is that share buybacks are advantageous both for those who take advantage of the franking and the tax credits at the time of the actual buyback and those who don't because the number of shares obviously on issue are reduced and therefore ultimately it pushes up earnings per share and hopefully share value. So every time we do it, we analyse those different options very carefully and depends on the balance of things, franking credit balance, the ATO rulings and the like. But I do believe that on the whole off market share buybacks are the best way to proceed. Thank you. Microphone three. Chairman, I'd like to introduce Eric Platt from Melbourne.
Good morning, Mr Chairman, CEO and board members. There's been quite a bit of mention about the NBN. Unfortunately, it seems to be in a bit of a political football, and I think we've got some answers in terms of the micro-level where Telstra are trying to better manage it. Just wondering if there's a more macro type considerations out there? Question one. Do you want to give me a follow one or do you want me to answer that first? Yes, if I could. Now, it might be dirty washing from well in the past, but PCCW Hong Kong and I'm talking on the acquisition side of things. Is there any remaining involvement and secondly, have the lessons have been learned from that unfortunate venture? Thank you. OK, so thank you. Firstly, on the NBN, on the macro, as you termed it, obviously that is not in our control. The NBN is a matter of the national government of the day. What we certainly stand for and try to ensure is, as the CEO said in his speech that it's critical that broadband access at affordable prices are available to all Australians.
And we would hope that whatever the play out of the political football as you term it, whatever that ends up with that, the end result is indeed that affordable broadband access is available to all Australians. Regarding PCCW Hong Kong, I just checked with Andy, as I understand we don't have a formal shareholding, but we still do have some relationships with them. If you need more detail and you can perhaps just explain what that is. Do you have a particular concern or a particular issue? Only the fact I believe that there were lessons to be learned from that venture, and I'm wondering whether those lessons have been suitably appreciated and leveraged, leveraged to a good point. Yeah, no. Well, certainly. Obviously, big companies make lots of acquisitions and they don't always go well. But the challenge for the board, I think, is to make sure that, as you say, we certainly learn from the ones that don't go well. We try not to make the mistakes twice but equally, we do have to take risks.
In building businesses, we have to make some punts. We have, I think, some $300 million invested in venture capital startups in the United States, which we, we hope will ultimately bring some value to Telstra. We don't expect to necessarily back the next Facebook, but we would hope that some of those technologies being developed will benefit Telstra in the future. Now, a lot of those companies won't. But it's really like research and development I guess. PCCW it before, I think virtually all our time here, but that was more than research and development. That was a very major issue and certainly, I think I tried to allude to in my speech, well, we will take risks and we will buy companies if they make sense. But we're not going to buy companies that risk the future of the company. We're not going to take bets of that magnitude that we would jeopardise Telstra. Thank you. Microphone one please. Chairman, I would like to introduce Colin (UNKNOWN) area. Thank you. Good morning, Mr Chairman, everyone on the board.
If you'd allow me, I'd like to say a few words. I've been a member of Telstra since they started. I was down for the Melbourne Marathon weekend and I thought I'd try and kill two birds with one stone, come to my first Telstra meeting. I took me an hour to try and find this place being a country bumpkin but I just like to congratulate you for yourself and your board. I've got complete confidence in what you do. You might get the knocks but I just want to give you some credit for the whole lot, what Telstra does. Thank you. Thank you very much for those generous words. It is our job as a board and management to listen to the issues and the complaints and to try to deal with those things. But it's very nice to hear from time to time that we have that level of support. I can assure you, the board and management try extremely hard to deliver value for shareholders and do the right thing with the company. Thank you again. Microphone number four, please. Thank you, Chairman. I would like to introduce Roman North.
Good morning, Mr. Chairman, I spend a lot of time up in the country doing farm work, and I stay with my brother. I have a mobile phone and often I leave it in the hallway and some of the calls take two or three hours to come through. Now there's a lot of towers going up in the country, are they Telstra towers or not? It's up in the up on the Murray River. And the other question I'd like to know, he tells me that he's fixed lines going to close in a couple of years, so what kind of fine is he going to end up with from Telstra? And how is he going to be assured that he will get a call coming through to him, I don't know whether those mobile towers are working, but you know, in the future for those country people, how are they going to come? Thank you. Thank you for that question. Our mobile coverage is by far the most extensive in Australia. We cover some 99.4% of the population and nearly two and a half million square kilometres. Now, that doesn't mean we cover absolutely everybody, of course, but we certainly do cover the vast majority with over eight and a half thousand base stations across Australia.
There's a particular program with a government partnership called Blackspot Program, where we and others, but we're by far the largest participant in that program. But together with the government to put mobile towers into areas that would otherwise be uneconomic. We have a plan of, I think, some 577 new mobile base stations being rolled out under that program. So I can't tell you standing here whether that particular attire you saw was a Telstra one or not, but it's certainly more likely to be one of ours than anyone else's. We have by far the most extensive coverage across Australia as as I mentioned. You also said something about your fixed line going to be closed. I'm not quite sure what that would mean, perhaps the NBN is passing. I don't know why. I don't think we would cut off a fixed-line. It's our obligation to provide a fixed-line to every person who wants one in Australia. So again, if you'd like to see one of our staff or any of us afterwards, we can investigate that for you and answer that question for you.
Thank you. Microphone one, please. Chairman, I would like to introduce Hans Witteveen from Seymour. Thank you. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen. I have to declare a personal interest. I'm a 58'er. That means I've worked since 1958 till retirement for PMG Telecom Telstra. I understand the report that you've made and that finances have to be used wisely, and I can see that some of this is going into new technology. What I'd like to talk about is Telstra points of presence. In the days of Frank Blount, there's a senior manager who just about cut down all the points of presence. So if you wanted to find Telstra, where do you find him? A couple of years later, the pendulum swung the other way and Doug Campbell moved to Aubery to set up countrywide. I see you're nodding here, do you remember this? What I'd like to talk to you about now is that recently I too have become a country bumpkin. I've moved from the metro area to Seymour. And here this bill, I want to support a previous speaker in how Telstra deliver service.
This also was organized from an overseas call centre and they tried hard, but it was a shemozzle not to put too fine a point on it. So, OK. I went to a Telstra point of presence, except it's not a Telstra point of presence anymore. It's now a franchise I believe. But I had a problem and I stalled and joined a queue and it would be about a half-hour. At this point I probably got a bit snarly. Is this how you treat customers? Shit. All of a sudden I've got a queue jump. Yeah, a bloke came to look after my problem and found that it was in fact, a problem that he couldn't fix on the spot, but he was knowledgeable and an expert. Still alone he couldn't fix it, so I appealed to the director and the problem is in hand. In fact, contrary to someone else's experience, I shook the hand of the guy, the Mr Fix-It, who sat side here. So but, the point is that if we're are saving money by cutting out points of presence and we deal with customers by sending them overseas, and I know it sounds racist, but some of these people, their accents are worse than mine.
They're hard to understand. Then if the problem has to come back to Australia to be fixed, it's a question, are we really saving money here? And if I can fire the second bell, I'd also like to support another playful speaker on the subject of paper ills. I paid two bucks for a paper bill. It's Mickey Mouse money to me, it's Mickey Mouse money to this company. I've spoken at the previous Telstra AGM in Melbourne on the same subject. Rendering a bill is part of the operational cost of any commercial enterprise., doesn't matter what it is. And to charge a surcharge for that, even as little as two bucks, it's unconscionable. The previous chairman didn't agree with me, so be it. This one's on your neck, Mr Chairman, sorry. Thanks very much, and thank you also for your continued and long term loyalty, that's wonderful. I think I mentioned earlier the coverage we have across Australia is second to none. Does that mean that we have a point of presence everywhere where you'd like there to be one?
No, we don't but we do still have Telstra countrywide that you referred to very much active. We have area general managers, so there should be a support structure to address issues that you have wherever you are based in Australia. You also mentioned offshore. We use a mix of onshore-offshore franchises owned premises, staff, etc. and that provides flexibility to meet changing call volumes and needs across the business. But we hold all of our call centres to the same high standards of customer service, privacy and the like, the same with franchisees in the country. They held to exactly the same standard, so it shouldn't make any difference where that person is from, what language they speak, what nationality they are. We hold everybody accountable the same. The paper bill issue, yes, I know that comes up regularly. It's something we continually review. It is an industry-standard not that that helps, I'm sure with you but everybody in the industry does charge that. Clearly, in today's electronic age, there is a lot of benefit to the customer, but also to the company by transacting online electronically.
And ultimately, most businesses, I think, will end there and we would certainly like to get there, too. In the meantime, if you still require a paper bill, we will provide that paper bill. Thank you. Microphone number two. Chairman, I would like to introduce Howard Pascoe from Doncaster. Mr Chairman, CEO and fellow board members, all of us are worried about unemployment for our children or grandchildren. One area that's a huge demand at the moment is someone that's an expert in stopping your computer system from being hacked, cyber security. And it's quite interesting that you look at one of the most popular TV programs in Australia at the moment is border security. There's Border Security Australia, Border Security New Zealand, Canada, millions of Australians love border security. What I would like to see Telstra do is lead a national think tank involving all experts in all the telco companies to solve the problem of security, cyber security, hacking, fraud on a national basis so that Australia becomes a world island continent.
We secure our borders from international hacking, fraud, cyber security, we're guaranteed for all our customers. Now, who was asking for this? Government departments, defence, federal, state, local government. They're all worried about how secure their computers are. Private enterprise, the home. This fine gentleman here, just how secure is this laptop computer? What guarantee is he got that he's not been hacked in this very moment? So there's a huge opportunity for you. You can make billions out of solving the problem. We can lead the world and if you want me to give an example of how terrible it is, look at the US presidential election. The Russians hacked driven millions of computers is the allegation, influencing millions of Americans. So that gives an example of where you can go in the future. Thank you, Mr Chairman. Well, thank you for that very enthusiastic suggestion. Actually, all joking apart, you're right on the money. It is an area of huge opportunity and it's an area that Telstra I am glad to be able to say to you is leading by a long way at the moment.
We recently opened, I think two, Sydney and Melbourne are two large new cyber security centres. We work actively with government. We do actually participate, the prime minister has a task force or a small advisory group on exactly this subject of which Andy Penn sits on, participates and so, we are right across that. Cyber security is a very large part of the network applications and services offering that we make to corporates, and that is gradually filtering down more and more into smaller businesses and ultimately even the consumer. So I think it's going to be a huge, huge part of our future. You're absolutely right. Microphone four, please. Thank you, chairman, I would like to introduce Gary Atkinson from Tasmania. First of all, Mr Chairman, I'd like to congratulate you and the board and management on the performance of Telstra because I think under difficult circumstances you have done a very good job. However, we're here to, I'd like to raise the idea that Telstra still seems to me to be a public service business, that is a carryover from the old days from telecom or whatever it was then.
And you raised the prospect of a new mobile competitor coming into the market. And to me, they seemed to come along and take the low hanging fruit, if we put it that way. I live in Tasmania in the Tamar Valley, about 12 kilometres north of Launceston. I have good Telstra service there. My next-door neighbour doesn't use Telstra. If she wants to use her mobile phone, she has to walk up the backyard and stand next to the chook pen to get the service. I might add that since she got rid of the rooster, the service has improved about 50%. So what I'm suggesting is that Telstra does not promote the quality of its service. As compared to the people who only want to, you know, have a service in the middle of Sydney and Melbourne and take the big profits from those areas rather than service the people in the outer lying areas of Australia. Are you addressing those issues in a better and more vigorous manner or are you going to let these new people come in and take more of the low hanging fruit off Telstra and of course, affect our dividends and our profits in the future?
Thank you. Thank you. That's a very good question. I mean, firstly, you referred to the coverage you get and that others, even with a chook pen, don't get. So, you know, we have invested heavily in that network superiority. We will continue to invest in that network superiority in particular when TBG comes along. And that said, we understand that TBG will go after a sector of the market that will impact the market, and they will, as you said, go for low hanging fruit, which means they will probably go for the large cities to start with a low priced offering. So it will be a very different offering to Telstra. We do not intend to chase that down. We intend to continue to promote the benefits of our network and the investment we make in superior service. But we have to be realistic, there will be people who will change for a large price discount. And for that reason, we've also spent a lot of time planning the launch of Belong Mobile, which used to be a fighter brand for broadband and is now selling mobile as well.
That will be with a cost structure and a similar network coverage that Will serve a network offering that TPG offers. So we believe that with that, we can bifurcate the market. We will stay the mothership in the main premium end of the market, which is where we belong. But we will have the means to fight down below in that maybe 15, 20% of the market there will be very price sensitive. Thank you. Microphone one. Mr chairman, I would like to introduce Nina Anderson from South Melbourne.
NINA ANDERSON:
Good morning, Mr Chairman. I'm particularly interested in what you're doing in innovation. I wonder if you could share a bit more light on that and the industries you're focusing on, as well as some of the talent you brought into the organization, please?
SPEAKER:
I might ask Andy to, he'll get a much better answer than I will on this one. It's certainly an area that the board is particularly interested in. And obviously, innovation and all the development in technology is critical to our future. So if you'll allow me, I'll just ask Andy to make a few comments on that.
ANDY:
Thank you very much, Chairman and also to Mr Atkinson, and I hope he's enjoying the new small cell, which we just put into Lilydale in the time of valley, just north of Launceston. But look, turning to innovation, look, thank you. It is a very important topic. And of course, Telstra is an extraordinarily large company, and so encouraging innovation in the context of a large company is always very challenging. And it's not down to one single initiative, but we have a range of initiatives which I do believe are making an impact. And as I mentioned in my address, I was particularly proud that we were ranked number one in innovation in Australia this year in the Australian Corporate Innovation Index of the Top 50. And not only were we ranked number one, but actually our score rating was double for the next most innovative company in Australia, which was very encouraging. And so how are we achieving it? Well, firstly, we're investing through Telstra Ventures, which is a venture investing part of our business, where we have invested $300 million in more than 45 technology startups, very much aligned to telecommunications.
So they're in things such as mobile apps, mobile radio access communication, types of investment messaging systems, that sort of thing. (UNKNOWN) is our accelerator. So this is supporting companies before they even get to the point of venture capital. So this is ideas before there's a business model, and we've supported around 80 new startups again in the technology space. We've got a partnership with Pivotal. Pivotal is an American company, which was one of the founding pioneers in technology, or rather a methodology referred to as agile, which you may have heard of. We got a joint venture here with them in Sydney, where we're introducing agile based methodologies into the organisation. We have over 100 teams now that are using that methodology actively within the business. Another area of importance for us, I mentioned, is in data science and data analytics that's becoming critically important. We have around 70 data specialists in the company today. We've relaunched something called Telstra Labs recently, which is a virtual innovation and laboratory capability under Stephen Elop, one of our group executives who heads that up, that's got an IIT lab, 3D printing lab, software lab, hardware labs based here in Melbourne, but also in Sydney.
And we've also got capabilities internationally as well. So there's a lot of activity in the innovation space as well. And it's also, of course, about, as you said, attracting new people into the organisation as well. And so we're very much pushing that through our graduate programs. And so look, there's a number of initiatives that are underway. And I think, as I say, there's no single silver bullet solution to becoming a more innovative company, but through a whole range of different initiatives and investments and processes, we're really sort of starting to see the benefit of that as as demonstrated in the recognition through the award earlier this year. So I thank you.
SPEAKER:
Thank you. Well, we have no further questions at this time, so I would just remind the shareholders this is the opportunity for you to ask any general question about the business or its operations before we go on to remuneration and the final topics. It looks like we have no. We do have a question. So microphone one. Chairman, I would like to introduce Edgar Segars from Eltham.
EDGAR:
Thank you for allowing me to ask the question. The 5G network that you're going to implement, how does that compete with the NBN as it is at the moment? And if I may also ask, the black spot program, how does that look in the long-term for the so-called driverless car when you reach one of these black spots? Thank you.
SPEAKER:
OK. Well, your first part of your question, the 5G network. The 5G network is not being set up to compete with the NBN. The 5G network is being set up to deliver a whole raft of new capabilities at higher speeds than have been available before. Now, there will be always an overlap between fixed and mobile, and ironically, fixed networks are becoming more mobile and mobile are becoming more fixed as small cells get closer and closer to the home, et cetera. But the whole purpose of 5G is to offer greatly enhanced services, lower latency, a lot of the technology, you mentioned driverless cars and the like. So that will be the prime motivator and driver of investment in that. As to what happens to a driverless car in a black spot. I'm not sure I can answer that completely, but I won't be in it. I can assure you of that. Look, I mean, there's obviously a fair bit of work to be done. Driverless cars is gonna be the most dramatic transformation of the landscape. I think I read that by 2030, the United States were about 440 million cars is believe they'll drop to about 40 million cars by then.
This is a sheer efficiency of your own. You just need a car when you need it for the 50 minutes to go down to the shops or whatever. But in Australia, there are over 700 pieces of legislation that need changing before a driverless car can run on our roads. So it's gonna take a while, not just technologically, but also in terms of regulation and the like. But it's definitely gonna come and it is going to be absolutely transformational. Thank you. Microphone two. Thank you, Chairman. I would like to introduce Victoria Brown from Melbourne.
VICTORIA BROWN:
Thanks for the opportunity to talk to you, Mr Chairman and the rest of the board. I just heard a query about how Telstra practically consults with customers. Have you considered doing custom surveys as a way to understand customers issues and needs? It would seem to me that you could get some really good qualitative and quantitative data about what people's concerns and also to get opportunity to understand future customer products and services that you can provide. Maybe that would enable you to understand what the problems are at the customer interfaces in your customer shops and that may be really useful data for you. Thank you.
SPEAKER:
Thank you. Thank you. I'd respond to that with two components of an answer. And firstly, obviously, we have an extremely efficient and extensive, well-run marketing department, which spends a lot of time doing exactly that in holding focus groups with customers. Every new product that goes out to market is tested exhaustively beforehand with customers. So I think there wouldn't be many companies in Australia that do more market research across their customer bases than we do. The other really important factor to point out, of course, is that 40% of senior management teams variable compensation is based on net promoter score performance. So that some people will say that's not a financial measure. It sort of is because it's not something that can be gamed. That's external evaluation of what the interaction of a customer, the customer experience with us. So the episode, NPS, as we call it. So when you've had a telephone call with Telstra or you've been to shop you've done whatever, large number of people, so it's a very meaningful data of sample are asked how do you rate that experience?
And then in the other half of the 40%, so 20% is on the strategic NPS, as we call it, which is irrespective of what performance you may have had not had, would you recommend Telstra as a supplier? So that puts a huge, huge amount of effort and focus in management's minds. I can assure you. They're extremely targeted and oriented towards customer service to understanding what makes better customer service. I hope that answers question. Microphone three. Thank you, chairman, I would like to introduce Murray Newman.
MURRAY NEWMAN:
Good. Thank you, chairman. My query is, I think if you didn't answer, I think I've missed it, but I don't think there was a figure that you gave for any likely net profit increase for the year we're now in. I'll be pleased if you could give us some idea of that. You gave us other figures of income and sales, but I'm not too sure if you gave it as a percentage increase.
SPEAKER:
Sorry, I misheard the question. I understand it was guidance, not historically reported. No, we do not issue guidance on net profit because of the many factors that can influence a final net profit. So we limit it to the measures that you see revenue, EBITDA and cash flow.
MURRAY NEWMAN:
Alright. Thank you.
SPEAKER:
Thank you. Microphone two. Thank you, chairman. I'd like to introduce David Holland from Tasmania.
DAVID HOLLAND:
Hi there, chairman. I'd just like to say first, I think you guys are doing a pretty good job. Second, I like to watch Sky News Business with Ticky Fullerton, and you were on that show a couple of weeks ago and you said if Telstra hadn't paid a dividend for the past ten years, you would have a $15 billion war chest available. I know you've only been on the board for nine years and chairman for the past year or two. But if Telstra didn't pay a dividend, what would you've done with all that money?
SPEAKER:
Very good question. Very good. Firstly, thanks for the compliment. We appreciate that. No, the point all I was trying to make there wasn't specifically reference to Telstra. It was just that the world is changing so fast around us that it's not just the technology and the products and services that new companies offer that is a change. It's also the business model of those companies. And if you look at many of them like Amazon's and others, they do not pay a dividend because they reinvest in their growth business to grow their market share, reduce prices, enhance their product offerings. That drives strong share price appreciation and you see enormous share price, thousands of percent share price appreciation from those companies, which to those investors who backed them, obviously outweighs the lack of a dividend. I was just making the point in general across all of corporate Australia. It's not specific to Telstra. We're very much, Australia is very much a yield driven market historically with high payout ratios, and it's gonna be interesting to see how those go over the coming years.
Not just us, but the whole corporate world. That was that was all I meant. And just because we pay a very large amount of money out as a dividend, I just wanted to emphasize the magnitude of it and say, if hypothetically, which don't worry, we've never considered not paying a dividend and we won't consider not paying a dividend. But if one hadn't, if one had behaved the same way as some of those other companies, we would have a war chest of $50 billion. Now, I'm not sure we'd have done anything better with it than giving it back to you, which is why we gave it to you. But I do think it's a very important and challenging change in the corporate landscape going forward. Microphone two again. Chairman I'd like to introduce Rob Metcher from French Island.
ROB METCHER:
Mr. Chairman, board of directors. I'm retired now, but I live in an isolated community. My previous job was one of the things we had to do is transport Telstra crews onto the island as we don't have a bridge and their expertise and their forbearance was a pleasure to work with them, except for one New Zealand guy who like to refer to Greg Chappell underarm incident a little too frequently. And more serious note, a wonderful federal government with a dodgy power supply in the future. Does Telstra have any clout along with other businesses to keep them up to the mark if the incompetence and messing around leaves us without power and our communication system? Thank you.
SPEAKER:
The subject of electricity prices, it's probably not the topic that we should get too deep into here. But suffice it to say that I think our increase is here and over 100 million. We've increased cost to us because of the rise in electricity prices. So it's very much something as forefront of mind. I very much hope that successive governments will get their act together and get an energy policy finally, that that addresses these needs for the long term, and I'm confident it will happen. But I think there's a year or two of challenge before we get there. Microphone three, please. Chairman, I would like to introduce Robert Pelly.
ROBERT PELLY:
Good morning, Mr. Chairman and members of the board, I'm one of the unfortunate tier two investors who took financial advice from Peter Costello. After 12 or more years, my question, considering Telstra is one of the biggest, well, is the biggest telecommunications company in Australia, I'm just wondering, after 12 or more years, why the Telstra share price is still half of what I paid for it back in the tier two days?
SPEAKER:
Thank you. Obviously, we are extremely mindful of that. The tier two tranche, I think, was the most disadvantaged in terms of price versus the ultimate yield. And I believe that it's returned over some 17 years, only about 16%, which is far lower than the Tier one and tier three tranches produced, which were more like 175% and 87%, I think. So, again, reference to the comments we made earlier about share price. I mean, all we can do as a company is to set a business strategy that we believe will deliver the maximum value to shareholders and then make sure that management execute on that. Decisions that come down from on high, like the creation of the NDN, regulatory changes and other things, as well as the competition is something we can't control. We have to be mindful of. We have to make sure that we respond as efficiently as we can to those challenges, but we do not control them. Obviously, there are many, many factors that go into affecting the share price, not just how one is performing today, but how markets perceive that the industry and the particular player will go in the future.
Microphone one. Chairman, I would like to reintroduce Michael (UNKNOWN) from Wollen.
MICHAEL:
Mr Chairman, I'd just like to ask, where is the next Autohome business gonna come from? I was really upset that you sold that business because of such a successful business. Why did you find it necessary to sell Autohome the Chinese business? And could you also comment on how this medical software business is going? Because from what I hear, it's really struggling to make any money, the medical business. But firstly, why did you sell Autohome and if you could comment on the medical software business? Thank you.
SPEAKER:
Thank you. We sold Autohome because it was an investment in a company in another country, China, as you know, where we made an extraordinary large profit close to $2 billion of profit. And we felt it would be prudent as a company, as a board to take that profit and put it in the bank and then indeed, that facilitated the further return to shareholders. There's always the, you know, with every shareholding, there's a question do you hold on, hold on hoping it will go higher or do you wait and then sometimes see that value dissipate considerably? I don't think we'd have been thanked if the share price had gone the other way, and we lost $2 billion on the investment. So I think you can always be criticized for not picking the absolute peak of the market. But making a $2 billion profit on investment like that is pretty good and it doesn't happen every day. Where's the next one coming from? Well, I think Andy mentioned we have some 35 investments in Telstra Ventures in Silicon Valley. Will one of those becoming an Autohome?
I don't know. It's potential for that. But we do hope at the very least, they will contribute financially and strategically to the development of the company. Lastly, regarding Telstra health, look, yes, Telstra Health hasn't hit everything we expected it to do, but it's a start up business again in a new area where we're bound to make some mistakes and we have made some mistakes. But we've also made a lot of successes and Telstra Health is actually slightly sort of under the covers a bit some of the success that it has had. We administer the electronic transaction to more than 260 million scripts annually, between 22,000 GP's and nearly 5,000 pharmacies. And our patient flow and queue manager solutions are used by over 100 public hospitals, with the largest health software and technology provider already employing about 800 health professionals. And we're embarked on some very major projects like the National Cancer Screening Registry and others. So I think it's exactly what we should be doing as a company.
We should be taking risks that should pay off. Sometimes they don't. Sometimes they do. But none of them will affect the future of the company completely. We're not taking risks, as I said in my earlier speech, that jeopardize the whole company. But Telstra Health is on the way to being a very substantial and successful business. Well, we've got some clear plans, which we don't obviously publicize as to when it will make money. Very few businesses of scale make money from day one. Now, if you look at our network applications and services business at the time I've been on board, that was in a very similar situation when it started. It lost money and there was a lot of questioning. Should we be in this or should we not? Now, you look at where where it is, over $3 billion business growing at 30% annum and the margins have more than tripled since we started. So yes, we don't get everything right. And yes, it may take longer than everyone would like for something like Telstra Health to be profitable, but we're very confident it'll be.
Otherwise, we wouldn't stay in it. If it wasn't, we would cut it. Thank you. Microphone four. Thank you, chairman. I would like to introduce Francis Mallon from Cobourg.
FRANCIS COBOURG:
Thank you.
FRANCIS:
I would just like to ask one question about the rollout of the NBN. The (UNKNOWN) people who are putting these yellow structures on the footpaths because I'm one of the unfortunate people who has fallen over it. I rang Telstra and I asked them why they can't be made level with the footpath, but I didn't get much of a reply really about this. So, is it the Telstra Company that are putting these up?
JOHN P MULLEN:
Thank you Francis. Are you a long distant relative that I don't know about?
FRANCIS:
No, I really don't know. I spell my name the same way and everything, but we originated from Manchester, so I don't know.
JOHN P MULLEN:
I reckon not. But, anyway, look, I'm not a specialist in the operations there, Andy just tells me the orange covers like you're referring to are probably actually temporary pit covers, which are protecting a damaged (UNKNOWN) somewhere where remediation is needed. I don't think that would be the NBN, the NBN is responsible for putting obviously their own infrastructure and not Telstra. So, I'm pretty sure that is what it would be. And I hope you don't fall over any more. Thank you. (UNKNOWN), again, please.
SPEAKER:
Yes chairman. I would like to introduce Frederick Cornelius from Essendon.
FREDRICK CORNELIUS:
Good morning, chairman and CEO and board members. Just on service, I'm experiencing an increasing number of my download speeds decreasing and also a lot of dropouts. I must say your support staff are very good, they bend over backwards to try and help you and they do a fantastic job. Sometimes, it is a bit difficult with accents, but they really do try very hard. The other aspect also is Telstra doesn't inform you as a customer when they put new plans out. Sometimes there could be advantages to the old plan that you have. For instance, now you mentioned something on pensioner discounts, I have no idea what they are. And if they are, where would you find them and could you extend it to foxtail?
JOHN P MULLEN:
Regarding the first part of your question, downloads speeds, I don't know what service were they or ADSL, so what the service is.
FREDRICK CORNELIUS:
ADSL2, yeah.
JOHN P MULLEN:
Say? ADSL2?
FREDRICK CORNELIUS:
Yeah.
JOHN P MULLEN:
Right. Well, there's no reason why you should be experiencing problems and lower download speeds. In fact, we've invested quite heavily over the last six, 12 months on improving ADSL performance. So, again, without knowing the specifics of your particular issue, there are staff here who can address anything that's outstanding that hasn't been resolved by the people that you spoke to previously. Regarding being kept informed of new plans, we do promote them pretty widely. Our website in particular lists all of those sort of services and concessions that you can obtain. So, I would suggest you perhaps go there, or, again, give us a ring and ask if you've got any particular area that you're interested in where we can try and answer that for you.
FREDRICK CORNELIUS:
I understand that, but the daily(UNKNOWN) and busy lifestyle, you don't think of getting on, finding out what are the new plans, your life just goes by so quick.
JOHN P MULLEN:
Well, it does. And obviously the landscape is changing extremely rapidly all the time. We do proactively contact customers where we see that they're on a plan that is not the right one for them or is costing them too much. Whatever we do proactively on a large scale contact customers to tell them that. But most of the communication, inevitably, as it's all changing so fast, is on the website.
FREDRICK CORNELIUS:
Notification of different events with tickets and what have you, 99% of them, which I never go to, so why couldn't they send out a message saying that, you know, we've got new plans, have a look at them.
JOHN P MULLEN:
Well, literally the plans are changing daily and weekly. The marketing team and product teams are developing new pricing, new plans on a constant basis. It would be impractical to email every customer or potential customer, let alone send a physical letter to everyone. So, I would encourage you to go online and/or ring our customer service. Thank you.
FREDRICK CORNELIUS:
Thank you.
JOHN P MULLEN:
Right. I have no more questions here. So, last chance for everybody before we go on to the other items. Great. OK. Well, thank you very much for those very thorough, engaging questions. We've now finished our discussion on this item, and I now turn to ITEM 3a on today's agenda, which is to consider the re-election of Peter Hearl. So, Peter's details are set out in the notice of meeting, and I would just add that we note that Peter retired from the Board of Treasury Wine Estates, effective 31st of August 2017. Peter has been a non-executive director since August 2014. He's a very valuable member of the board with excellent experience and an important role as chairman of the remuneration committee and a member of our nomination committee. Peter is a very experienced company director with substantial international experience as a senior executive in fast moving consumer goods sector, including of Yum Brands and PepsiCo. The board, other than Peter, recommends his re-election. So I'll now take any questions you may have regarding Peter's re-election.
Looks like there are no questions. Thank you, so we will now vote.
SPEAKER:
(INAUDIBLE)
JOHN P MULLEN:
We do? We have one on the way. Sorry.
SPEAKER:
Chairman, I'd like to reintroduce Maurice Newman.
JOHN P MULLEN:
Thank you, Mr. Newman.
MAURICE NEWMAN:
Thank you. My query is quite a general one. I note that at the board there are only two people who really, I think, technical who have been trained as an engineer. And I find this rather surprising because you've mentioned quite frequently through the morning that you are a technical organisation, you are an engineering type organisation, but you only have two directors who I think could lay claim to being that. I was wondering why that is and if you had any board vacancies, whether in the future, that you would put some people with engineering training under the board. Thank you.
JOHN P MULLEN:
Thank you. That's a very valid question indeed. We are very conscious of that. We did have up until recent retirements two others. We had John Ziegler and Geoff Cousins, both of whom had specific telco experience, and we had Catherine Livingston, who was an expert in pretty well everything. So, we had adequate representation, I think, at that time. I am though very mindful and we are currently looking to try to boost the board's strength with specific technical knowledge, as you have said. So, it's a very good point, sir.
MAURICE NEWMAN:
Good. Thank you.
JOHN P MULLEN:
(UNKNOWN) three again.
SPEAKER:
Chairman, I'll be introducing Noel Levi.
NOEL LEVI:
Mr. Chairman. And I've just got one comment to make about the re-election of this director. I am not happy with the remuneration scheme, it's too generous. There's quite a few other comments I'd like to make, but not now. But I'll be voting against you because you are the chairman of the remuneration committee. And typically, these AGMs comments from the floor seem to be ignored. So, I decided in the future maybe make a comment, but fought against all of those people who are on the remuneration boards and maybe in that way they may take some notice. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
JOHN P MULLEN:
OK, thank you. Look, we will be covering remuneration in more detail when the chairman of the remuneration committee speaks shortly, but let me since you've asked a question, let me try to respond to it now. Firstly, we do listen and I can assure you that both the remuneration committee and the board take the issue of remuneration extremely seriously. We scour the world for best practice within Australia and elsewhere. We benchmark against other ASX 20 companies, and we're constantly mindful of the balance between attracting the best talent, but also meeting shareholder concerns and expectations over excess remuneration. One of the reasons that we are changing the remuneration policy that you will hear from my colleague Peter in a minute is that we want to get further alignment of remuneration of management with shareholders. And to that end, as I said earlier, we're moving to 65 percent of their income will come in shares, which very much aligns them, we think, to shareholder interests as well.
So, directors fees, we obviously get external advice to benchmark ourselves. We don't seek to be the highest, we don't seek to be the lowest, but we seek to be broadly in line with other large corporates of our size. So, again, I would just emphasise we do take the issue of rem extremely seriously. It probably has more prominence in the company now than almost any other component of our business. So, thank you. OK, I think we have no further questions on Peter's re-election, so we will now vote on this item. The proxy and direct voting position is being shown on the slide behind me. As indicated in (UNKNOWN) meeting, I intend to vote all available proxies on this item in favour of Peter's re-election. So, please complete your vote now for ITEM 3a. With that, I will now turn to ITEM 3b, I will step down from the chair and invite Nora Scheinkestel, Chairman of your Audit and Risk Committee, to chair the meeting for this item.
NORA SCHEINKESTEL:
Thank you, John. Good morning, shareholders. ITEM 3b is to consider the re-election of John Mullen. John's details are set out in the notice of meeting. He joined the board in 2008 and has been chairman of your board since April 2016. He's chairman of the Nomination Committee and was previously chairman of the Remuneration Committee for five years until 2016. John has over two decades experience in senior executive roles with different multinationals in the transportation and logistics sector, including most recently as managing director and CEO of Asciano Limited from 2011 till 2016. The board, other than John Mullen, recommends his re-election. I will now take any questions you may have in relation to John's re-election. Yes. Microphone four, thank you.
SPEAKER:
Thank you. I would like to introduce Scott Hunter.
SCOTT HUNTER:
Yes, the two people up for re-election share nine other directorships or job appointments. Page 32 to 33 of the annual report shows that the 10 current directors have 43 other positions between them. Including the Telstra directorships, 10 people have 53 jobs. This is not in line with the statistical average of employment in Australia, where most people have one job. Also, in a country where two million people have no job at all. As there are only 168 hours in a week, and no one could work that whole amount anyway, are these staff not overcommitted? And in terms of a dispute over the phone bill, say, with one of the other companies that they have directorships for, whose side do they take or do they take no side at all, which would make Telstra have to make a decision about that with one person less?
NORA SCHEINKESTEL:
Thank you for your question. Sir, maybe starting with the last part. Certainly at Telstra, both from our internal policies, but also under the Corporations Act, there are quite strict rules that govern any conflicts of interest. So, if any of us have any conflict of interest in relation to a matter that's for decision before the board, then we will excuse ourselves from that item, we won't receive material on it. So, any conflict of interest that would arise relating to your other commitments or involvements are dealt with quite strictly, and we take that aspect of it very seriously. In respect to John's workload specifically, he has involvement with two other companies, Toll, which is a private, unlisted company, which he chairs and he's a member of the Brookfield Infrastructure Board. And in addition, he has involvement with a number of not for profit organisations. As chairman of the Audit Committee, I actually undertook John's review as part of our board review process earlier this year and spoke both to management and my fellow directors.
And one of the aspects that we talked about was certainly his commitment, and people commented that his involvement, his availability, his accessibility was exceptional. So, from the board's perspective, we're very comfortable about his workload and his level of commitment to the organisation. Thank you for your question. As there seem to be no other questions, then we've finalised discussion of this item. The proxy and direct voting position is now being shown on the slide behind me. As indicated in the notice of meeting, I intend to vote all available proxies on this item in favour of John's re-election. So, could you now please complete your vote for ITEM 3b? And as we've now finalised this item, I'll hand back the chair to John.
JOHN P MULLEN:
Thank you very much, Nora. I now turn then to items four and five on today's agenda. We'll deal with both of these two remuneration related items together as they relate firstly to the grant of performance rights and restricted shares to the Chief Executive Officer Andrew Penn under the new Telstra fiscal year 18 Executive Variable Remuneration Plan or EVP, and Telstra's 2017 remuneration report, which addresses both the remuneration outcomes for 2017 and the new EVP, which is a key part of senior executive remuneration for the future. I'd now like to invite Peter Hearl, chairman of the Remuneration Committee, to provide some introductory comments about this year's remuneration report. Our remuneration outcomes for fiscal year 17 and our executive variable remuneration plan. Peter will also take questions from the floor on these two items. Peter. Just need to mention. For those interested, lunch is being served outside now.
PETER HEARL:
I might go out. (LAUGHTER) Thank you, John. Good morning, fellow shareholders, I firstly would like to provide you with an overview of our remuneration outcomes for FY17, as explained in our remuneration report. Before then, looking ahead to 2018 and the introduction of the new Executive Variable Incentive Plan, or EVP. Our remuneration report provides a comprehensive overview of our performance and remuneration outcomes for financial year 2017, as well as a summary of our governance practices. Through our remuneration report we seek to enable you, our shareholders, and other interested stakeholders to understand the links between remuneration, company's strategy and Telstra's performance and the framework we have in place to provide effective governance over remuneration at Telstra. During FY17, there were no fixed remuneration increases and no changes to the short term incentive and long term incentive opportunities, as a percentage of fixed remuneration for our senior executives. The senior executive remuneration mix has remained the same since 2013.
Our remuneration policy is designed to link financial rewards directly to employee performance and contributions and company performance. And the financial year 2017 remuneration outcomes for senior executives are totally consistent with this. Looking at the short term incentive outcomes, as you have heard this morning, 2017 was a year of solid progress for the company, a year where we delivered on our guidance to the market and made progress in improving customer service. The outcomes under the FY17 STI plans therefore reflect the performance of the business, with senior executives receiving on average 41.3% of the maximum available opportunity. This reflects Telstra's performance on the free cash flow, EBITDAR, episodic and strategic MPS performance measures. We did not achieve our total income measure, resulting in no payment on this component. The Board exercised discretion in determining the outcomes of the financial measures to ensure there were no windfall gains or losses due to the timing of the NBN rollout, spectrum purchases and material acquisitions and divestments.
The board also considered and adjusted for restructuring costs to ensure management did not receive any windfall gains. While the aggregate effect of these adjustments on the FY17 STI results was a positive adjustment, overall, the resulting impact on FY17 senior executive STI plan payments was negligible at less than one half of 1%. Turning to the long term incentive outcomes, as we did not perform against our relative total shareholder return and free cash flow return on investment targets, senior executives received no remuneration under the FY15 LTI plan. When assessing performance under the FY LTI plan the board did not make any adjustments and therefore did not provide any relief for the effects of our strategic investment program. This is the program that we announced in August last year, which involves an additional investment of up to $3 billion over three years on our networks for the future and for digitisation of our business. The reason the board did not make any adjustments was because the FY15 LTI plan was already in place when the Strategic Investment Program was announced.
CHAIRMAN PETER HEARL:
This principle will also be applied to the FY16 LTI plan, which will be tested at the end of June 2018. For the NY17 LTI plan, when the free cash flow ROI measure is tested at the end of financial year 19, any reward will reflect the Board's assessment of management's performance in delivering against the Strategic Investment Plan. This will include both the costs and the benefits of the program over the performance period. Turning to non-executive director remuneration, there were no changes to non-executive director or committee fees during FY17. In FY17, Telstra conducted a review of its fees for non-executive director roles relative to other major companies in the ASX 20. The results of that review found the fees for the role of the remuneration committee chair and remuneration committee members, which has remained the same since August 2010, had not kept up with market rates for similar companies. The fees for these roles at other companies had changed as a result of their increased responsibilities on governance and accountability to shareholders.
Effective July 1, 2017, the board has increased the fee for the role of the Remuneration Committee Chair by $6,000 to $56,000 and for remuneration committee members by $3,000 to $28,000. No other changes were made to non-executive director or committee fees. Looking ahead to 2018, we've implemented a new simpler remuneration structure for our senior executives in the form of the Executive Variable Plan, or EVP. As we mentioned earlier, the proposed allocation of equity to the CEO under Item 4 is based on this EVP. The EVP is developed, has been developed following a review of our remuneration structures for the CEO and for our group executives, including our long term incentive plan structure, which was complex. It combines our existing STI and LTI arrangements into a simplified single incentive plan. Importantly, there's been no change to either the target or the maximum opportunity that the CEO or senior executive can earn under the plan. The new EVP is designed to continue to drive performance against customer experience and financial metrics, which create long term shareholder value, and rewards management in a way that provides a much better link to executive performance and alignment to shareholders through longer-term equity rewards.
This is achieved by a more significant proportion of the reward tested against the relative total shareholder return of a comparative group, which in future will comprise the ASX 100, excluding all the resource companies. The EVP extends the overall plan to five years from the current four, which further aligns executive rewards to shareholder interests. Consistent with our strategy to deliver brilliant customer experiences, NPS continues to be a significant component of the plan. The NPS system tells us how our customers perceive Telstra, and we believe this measure is the most effective indicator of our progress in delivering on this aspect of our strategy. Finally, we understand the importance to our shareholders of continuing to enhance the insight we provide on the link between remuneration and executive and company performance. As we introduce the EVP, we are committed to continuing to focus on the transparency with which we explain how remuneration outcomes are determined in future remuneration reports.
The board, other than Andrew Penn, recommends shareholders vote in favour of item 4, the allocation of equity to the CEO under the EVP. The board also recommends that shareholders vote in favour of item 5, the adoption of the remuneration report. I will now take any questions you may have on either items 4 or 5.
SPEAKER:
Chairman, I'd like to introduce Bilek to you from Melbourne.
BILEK:
Hi.
CHAIRMAN PETER HEARL:
Good morning.
BILEK:
Hello. You can listen to me?
CHAIRMAN PETER HEARL:
Yes, yes. I said good morning.
BILEK:
Anyway, I want to congratulate you. If you run for the federal election, you would win with this speech because it came out very nice around a very unclear situation. Anyway, the question is when is Telstra and any other companies will change their culture of remuneration and incentives? I work for 40 plus years in a private company. Never I was paid because I did something special, because they pay me to do the job. And you are paid and you have remuneration to do what is required to do. And why do you need extra and extra and extra? For what? Because you still have the old concept. Yes, if I have to do something to do my work, I need more remuneration, I need a different remuneration. I don't think it's a valid reason you... I would say if I was in power, I would chop your remuneration for the performance you have. So what do you need extra for? You explain to me, but not generic answers. I want specific answers. Yes, this gentleman needs more remuneration, more money because he did something.
But what does he do for doing his job?
CHAIRMAN PETER HEARL:
Well, firstly, thank you for your question. I want to emphasize that the board and the remuneration committee takes its governance and oversight of Telstra's remuneration policies and philosophies very seriously. We compete in a global market, in a very competitive global market, for the best possible CEO and group executives that we can get. And our whole philosophy is designed to, 1, support the strategy that we've put in place and to reinforce our culture and values. Secondly, to link financial rewards directly to employee contributions and company performance. And third, and importantly, to provide competitive remuneration to attract, retain and motivate highly skilled employees. I'd also emphasize, in terms of fixed remuneration, we use the midpoint of the ASX 20 as our benchmark or bellwether in terms of setting a fixed remuneration. So we believe that we, to get the best and brightest people that we've got, have to get to deliver on our strategies. We have to be competitive in remuneration, and that's exactly what we've done.
As I said, we take our role as oversight of the Remco philosophy and policies very, very seriously. And thank you for your question. Microphone 2.
SPEAKER:
Thank you, chairman. I have Liz Richards from Sydney.
CHAIRMAN PETER HEARL:
Thank you.
LIZ RICHARDS:
Thank you, Mr Hearl. Mr Hearl. I'm actually a treasurer of a village with 250 people, and I have to explain things financially to them at times. What distresses me is your use of TLAs and SLAs. You know what they are? Three letter acronyms and six-letter acronyms. You say FY.
CHAIRMAN PETER HEARL:
Financial Year.
LIZ RICHARDS:
I know it's Financial Year, but it takes the same time as saying FY. And you need to explain to anyone here who's grey head what some of these TLAs and SLAs are. You need to say the full words. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN PETER HEARL:
Thank you very much for that feedback, and I'll make sure that, if I'm standing here next year, I will comply.
LIZ RICHARDS:
(INAUDIBLE) is today as well.
CHAIRMAN PETER HEARL:
Are there any other questions, ladies and gentlemen? Yes, we have one here, and we've got one on microphone 2, first, I think, then 4.
SPEAKER:
Thank you, chairman. I'd like to reintroduce David Holland.
DAVID HOLLAND:
Hi there, Peter.
CHAIRMAN PETER HEARL:
David, how are you?
DAVID HOLLAND:
Pretty good. Just about ready to go outside and eat up, hopefully.
CHAIRMAN PETER HEARL:
You're not alone.
DAVID HOLLAND:
Thanks. The old man had a saying. He said if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys. And I reckon that saying holds true. So I reckon you're doing a good job as well. Yeah, that's about it. Thanks.
CHAIRMAN PETER HEARL:
Thank you, David. Microphone 4.
SPEAKER:
Thank you, chairman. I would like to introduce Scott Hunter.
SCOTT HUNTER:
The salary component that's paid in cash, or however it's paid, 2.3 million, that works out as a daily rate of $6,000 a day each day, every day. And I don't consider that to be peanuts. I consider the short term and long term incentive of earning $6,000 a day in a job. It's that one gets to keep it, and that should be motivation in itself. A number of people I know, if they were getting that, they'd be running into work to get there on time, not upsetting anybody, doing the job properly and then sticking their hand out for the $6,000 a day. And I don't see why you have to give any further incentive than that. I mean, why don't you just put the money in just a cash component instead of something that can increase to up to 5 million, which would be 15,000 a day, which is a pretty good salary.
CHAIRMAN PETER HEARL:
Thank you for your question. We believe that having a mix of cash restricted stock and performance shares is an appropriate way to attract, retain and motivate world-class executives. And we think what we've done with the EVP does just that. In terms of the FY17 remuneration, the REM policy, as I said earlier, is designed to link financial rewards directly to employee contributions and company performance. The CEO's remuneration, the outcome for the last year, is consistent with that philosophy. We delivered solid STI results and made progress against our strategies. In terms of the LTI outcome, which covers both the relative total shareholder return and the free cash flow return on investment, we did not deliver on our targets. So Andy received no remuneration under the FY15 LTI plan. And as a group, our key management personnel received 27% less cash equivalent remuneration in FY17 versus FY16, and Andy's remuneration on that basis was down 23%. I thank you for your question. Microphone 3.
SPEAKER:
Thank you, chairman. I'd like to reintroduce Noel Levy of Wollongong.
CHAIRMAN PETER HEARL:
Morning, Noel.
NOEL LEVY:
Good morning, Mr Chairman. First of all, with this new system you've got, it's a bit confusing, you know, working out which is STIs and which are LTIs. But based on what I've got here, for the short term incentive, you get 35% cash, 26% restricted shares. Is that correct of the total remuneration? And then for the long term incentive, it's 39% performance rates.
CHAIRMAN PETER HEARL:
Well, it's all part of the single incentive program.
NOEL LEVY:
But it's confusing. All the other companies...you are the first company that I've cut shares in. Put those two things together, and basically, it's making it more difficult for me, anyway, to decipher exactly what the STIs are and the LTIs. So can you answer the question, first of all? Am I correct in assuming that the total remuneration of the incentive schemes is 35% cash, 26% restricted shares for the STI and 39% of performance rates for the LTI.
CHAIRMAN PETER HEARL:
That's correct.
NOEL LEVY:
Well, if that's correct, it means the short term incentives, they're getting 61% and they're only getting 39% for the long term. Now, it's good having these long term being four or five years, but it doesn't encourage them to make long term decisions. They're getting 61% for the short term decisions. So it's in their interest to make decisions which are going to benefit in the short term.
CHAIRMAN PETER HEARL:
Well, as I said earlier, it's a single incentive program where 65% of the reward is in the form of either restricted stock or performance stock. The performance shares are, in fact, subject to a second hurdle at the end of four or five years for the FY18 EVP. And they're also subject to the first hurdle of achieving the performance results against the performance year, the first year of the performance plan.
NOEL LEVY:
Another question. On Page 7 where it says Plan terms and Conditions, the CEO's target is 200% of his fixed remuneration. And I'll turn over the page, top of the next page, CEO opportunity. It says the maximum opportunity is 400% of his fixed remuneration. So this means that allocation of equity methodology, when it comes in there, it said this fixture remuneration is 2.39 million. So 200% of that is 4.7 million. But in fact, it's twice that amount. It's 400%, not 200%. It is possible (UNKNOWN) have, which is closer to 10 million. (CROSSTALK) is fixed annual remuneration added to that, it's coming up towards 12 million. It's over the top.
CHAIRMAN PETER HEARL:
Well, the point I'd make as I did in my address is that the size of the opportunity, whether it's at target or maximum, is unchanged from the existing STI and LTI plans. The reality is that we've put more of the incentive into the form of equity, either restricted stock or performance shares. And we believe that much more tightly aligns with the interests of shareholders. And it's done over a longer timeframe, which, again, reinforces the alignment with shareholder interests.
NOEL LEVY:
The last comment and the last complaint is this, that relative TSR. That really doesn't align shareholders with the executives because they can still cash their incentives if they perform better than the ASX 100, minus the mining shares. So the share price could go down or dividends could go down. There could still get the remuneration, but we'd be losing our money.
CHAIRMAN PETER HEARL:
Well, there have to be in the top 50th percentile. The other point I make is that 80% of our shareholder base are domestic shareholders. And as such, we believe that the ASX 100 is much more relevant in considering the competition we face for investor capital. We also sought feedback extensively from major investors and proxies as we design the EVP. And the overwhelming feedback we got from those folk was that the ASX 100, excluding resources, is a much more relevant measure of shareholder return for Telstra.
NOEL LEVY:
Thanks, Mr Chairman.
CHAIRMAN PETER HEARL:
Thank you. There being no further questions at this time, I'm gonna hand back to the Chair. Thank you.
CHAIR:
Great. Thank you very much, Peter. Shareholders, I am now about to finalize discussions of Item 4 and 5 and conclude the meeting. So if you have any final questions on these two items or any other questions that you'd like to ask about your company that are relevant to shareholders as a whole, please, move to a microphone now. I take it as not. So thank you, shareholders. We've not finalized discussions of items 4 and 5 in the proxy and direct voting position on these two items is being shown in the slides behind me. As indicated in the notice of meeting, I intend to vote all available proxies in favour of Item 4, the grant to the CEO, and in favour of Item 5, the adoption of the remuneration report. Please, complete your vote now for these two items. Shareholders, that concludes our discussion of all items on today's agenda. If you haven't already done so, please, complete your voting now. Attendants are carrying ballot boxes throughout the room and ballot boxes are also located near the exits.
The poll will remain open for a further 15 minutes to enable shareholders to cast their votes, and the results of the poll will be available later today and can be obtained by visiting the ASX or our websites. All items of business having been considered, I now declare the meeting closed, subject to finalisation of the poll. Thank you and thanks to all of those who viewed the AGM online. Thank you for your attendance today, and I now invite you to join us for lunch in the foyer area. Thank you.
The 2016 AGM of Telstra Corporation Limited was held from 9:30am (Sydney time) on Tuesday 11 October 2016 at the Grand Ballroom, Four Points by Sheraton (Darling Harbour), 161 Sussex Street, Sydney NSW.
Recording of the 2016 AGM held on Tuesday 11 October 2016 at the Four Points by Sheraton (Darling Harbour), Sydney.
JOHN MULLEN:
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. My name is John Mullen, and my honour to be the new chairman of your company. So on behalf of my fellow directors, it's also my pleasure to welcome you all this morning to Telstra's 2016 Annual General Meeting. And I also extend a very warm welcome to the many shareholders joining us today online. I would like to begin by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land on which we're meeting the Gadigal people of the Eora nation and pay my respects to the elders past and present. We have a quorum today and I therefore declare the meeting open. Can somebody lift the volume, please? I apparently can't be heard. The notice of meeting was distributed earlier, setting out the business and the resolutions to be considered at this meeting, and I will obviously take that notice as read. There are five items of business on today's agenda; Presentation's firstly by myself and or Chief Executive Officer Andy Penn. Secondly, discussion about 2016 financial statements and reports.
Thirdly, consideration of the election and re-election of directors, consideration of the proposed grant of performance rights to the Chief Executive Officer and consideration of the remuneration report. Voting on items three to five will be conducted by a poll and that poll is now open. If you do need to leave the meeting early for any reason, you can vote by completing your voting card and place it in one of the ballot boxes near the exits. I'd now like to introduce my colleagues who are here with me today. Firstly, joining us today from our auditors Ernst and Young is Steve Ferguson is available to answer any questions you may have on the conduct to the audit or on the auditor's report. This will be Steve's final AGM as Telstra's auditor, and I would really like to acknowledge his great service to the company over the past six years. He will be succeeded by Andrew Price, also from Ernst and Young for the 2017 financial year. Then with me here, also on the stage are Andrew Penn, our Chief Executive Officer, Damien Coleman, our company secretary, Warwick Bray, our chief financial officer and my fellow directors on the board.
Shareholders will also be aware this year director Nora Kessel is standing for re-election and Craig Dunn and Jane Hemstritch, who joined the board earlier this year are standing for election. And I will shortly invite those directors standing for election and re-election to introduce themselves individually. But before I do that, I would first like to acknowledge the contribution of Chin Hu Lim, who's notified the board that he intends to retire as a director of Telstra at the conclusion of today's meeting. Chin Hu has been a director since 2013 and a member of the board's nomination committee from earlier this year. Chin Hu has made a very valuable contribution and on behalf of the board, I would like to express our sincere thanks and wish him well for the future. I would not just like to break for two seconds to ask Mr Lim to address the meeting.
CHIN HU LIM:
Good morning. I would like to thank all our shareholders who are present here today for giving me the opportunity to serve you as your director in the last few years. I've been from John Mullen, the chairman, about two months ago that I don't intend to stand for re-election in today's AGM. Now, some of you who know me would know that I'm actually based in Singapore, not in Australia. And for personal family reasons, I've decided to travel less and spend more time with my family in Singapore. It has been a real privilege to serve as your director, and I've had the privilege of working with some of the brightest talent in the industry, both with Andy Penn and his current management team and before that, David Toddy before he retired. I've enjoyed the many hours of discussion we have had on Telstra's key opportunities, as well as some of the challenges that a company faces. I have no doubt Telstra will move into greater heights and continue to create value for you as our shareholders. I'll be watching the company with keen interest, even as I retire.
And finally, thank you again for giving me the opportunity to serve you, and I wish all of you and Telstra the very best. Thank you.
JOHN MULLEN:
Thanks very much, Chin Hu. And again, our very best wishes to you for the future. So I'd now like to invite the director standing for election to introduce themselves, starting with Craig Dunn.
CRAIG DUNN:
Alright. Thank you, chairman and good morning, ladies and gentlemen. It's been a great honour for me to be invited to join the Telstra board and act as your representative. And I like to take the opportunity to say a few words this morning. Telstra, of course, occupies a very special place in the history of our great country. It makes a very substantial and enduring contribution to all the communities it serves, and I know that it will continue to do so into the future. I'm very conscious of the important role our board plays in the governance and stewardship of any company and believe my background and career enable me to contribute effectively to this role. I've held senior executive positions in other large Australian companies, including in finance strategy and as CEO, and I've lived and worked overseas in both Europe and Asia. In more recent years, I've taken a very strong interest in technology and the digital revolution and act as chair of Australia's leading fintech incubator here in Sydney.
I believe my background gives me valuable insights and experience into the opportunities and challenges likely to face the board of a large, complex and nationally significant company like Telstra. So I'd like to thank you for listening to me. Thank you for your support, and I look forward to continuing to add as much as I can as your shareholder representative. Thank you.
JANE HEMSTRITCH:
Good morning, fellow shareholders. I feel very privileged to have been asked to serve on both the Telstra board of directors and as a member of the Board Remuneration Committee and stand for election today. As a Telstra board director, I will bring to the table two main things. Firstly, my experience as a senior executive in a large global technology organisation, during which time I was responsible for 12 Asia-Pacific countries, including China, Japan and India, and over 30,000 personnel. Secondly, I'll bring my experience of over a decade as a director of other major Australian companies, allowing me to bring to Telstra some insights into governance, best practice and the ways in which other companies are implementing major change initiatives and tackling new technologies. With respect to my committee, I chair remuneration committees and other organization. And while Telstra has many unique characteristics and circumstances, in some ways faces similar challenges to other large ASX companies and insights, I think from other places can inform some of Telstra's choices.
I look forward to being part of the team that's the Telstra board of directors, and I ask for your support for my election as a director, and I'd be pleased to work on behalf of all shareholders during the next phase of the company's development. Thank you.
NORA SCHEINKESTEL:
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Nora Scheinkestel, and this is the third time I'm standing for re-election, having joined the board in 2010. During my time as a director of Telstra, I've chaired the Audit and Risk Committee since 2012 and I've chaired the due diligence committees for the two NBN transactions and the two buybacks, which we've done over recent years. Telstra, like the whole Australian economy, is experiencing a dynamic and fast changing environment, and your board and management team are focused on being agile and responsive to our customers needs and demands, as they too continue to change. With some 25 years of experience as a non-executive director, having served in almost every sector of the economy, I've been part of leadership teams needing to fundamentally transform their business, respond to deep shifts in customer expectations and to meet increasing regulatory hurdles. While the disruption that's occurring is certainly presenting challenges, it's also offering us tremendous opportunities.
We won't always get it right, but responding quickly and learning from our missteps is key to being able to delight our customers, deliver value to you our shareholders and also meet the requirements of our broader stakeholder group. That's why at the Audit and Risk Committee, we're currently working with our management team to redesign our risk management practices so that we're better equipped to respond when issues arise. Should you choose to re-elect me, I believe my experience will allow me to make a valuable contribution to our leadership team as we face into what is a very exciting time. Thank you.
JOHN MULLEN:
Thank you, Nora, Craig and Jane, and I would like to thank all of my directors for their contribution, for their support and their commitment during the last year. Now, before addressing progress over the last 12 months, I'd just like to say a few quick words about the board and the governance framework of Telstra. Our board's role is to provide a robust structure through which our business objectives are set. The performance of our management team is monitored, the risks that we face are managed and shareholders interests are protected. We seek at all times to ensure that the board has an appropriate mix of skills, diversity, experience and expertise to enable it to effectively fulfill its responsibilities to help your company navigate the opportunities and the challenges that we face. Now, in this regard, there were a couple of changes to the board during the last year. In particular, shareholders would be aware that in February this year, Catherine Livingstone announced that she would be retiring as chairman and as a director, and she ceased to hold office as chairman and director in April.
While unfortunately, Catherine is unable to join us here today, can I say that Catherine has been an exceptional chairman and her contribution to Telstra through times of great change has been absolutely enormous. She was a director for nearly 16 years and chairman for the past seven. During that time, Catherine has helped ensure that Telstra is very well placed to capitalise on the enormous opportunities of the digital age, and that your company continues to build the expertise, the capability and the customer focus that we need if we're going to succeed in the future. Through so many fora, she has shown her passion for technology, her passion for science, reform and innovation. And in so doing, she's earned the deep respect of stakeholders around the world. So on behalf of the Telstra board, the leadership team and I'm sure many shareholders here today, I would like to express our sincere thanks to Catherine for her great contribution to the company and to extend to her our best wishes for the future.
So I now have the honour and the privilege of succeeding Catherine in the role of chairman, very large shoes to fill indeed. But my focus and that of all my colleagues on the board is to maintain the exciting strategic course that we've jointly set and help take the company to new levels of performance in the future. So let me just make a few comments now about Telstra's performance in the 2016 financial year. 2016 was a year of increasing external change. But despite that, we were pleased to deliver another solid outcome for shareholders growing revenue and EBITDA on a guidance basis and again providing consistent shareholder returns. Net profit after tax from continuing and discontinued operations was up 35.9% to $5.8 billion, including the 1.8 billion that we realised from the sale of Autohome shares. Earnings per share for the year rose to 31.6 cents per share on a continuing basis, and the board declared a final dividend for the year of 15.5 cents per share, which takes the total dividend for the year to 31 cents, which is up 1.6% on the last financial year.
And while the results are solid, there's no doubt the competitive intensity has increased across all our segments and products as a piece of technology and innovation continue to accelerate and the rollout in particular of the NBN network, progressed. 2016 was a year where ongoing advances in technology and constant innovation continue to reshape the telecommunications and technology markets in which Telstra operates. 2016 saw more and more people, and more and more businesses, both large and small, take advantage of the exciting, empowering possibilities of new connective technologies. I think it's safe to say today there's virtually no technology innovation that does not fundamentally rely on a network and collectively, Telstra's networks are Australia's best. Thank you. We believe it, too. So to give you a sense for the scope of Telstra's operations, on average, 55 million calls and 365 million data connections are made over our network every day, connecting friends, connecting families, connecting businesses and essential services around Australia and for that matter, increasingly in the world.
And to give you a sense for the demand that we're seeing, a single 4G wireless broadband modem on the network today can deliver more than the total combined network throughput of 10 years ago and data traffic on our wireless network continues to double every two years. I'm not sure that anyone predicted this level of change or the speed of such change even a few years ago. Customers are expecting more and more capacity at a lower and lower price, and I cannot think of many other large established businesses in Australia, where usage of its core products and services are increasing at such a pace. It is for this reason that we were very disappointed to let customers down through the network interruptions we experienced in the second half of this financial year. We are deeply sorry for the impact of this had on our customers, and Andy Penn will take you through the steps that we're taking to mitigate the risk of this happening again in the future, particularly as reliance on smart devices grows and grows.
This said, there is nothing, and I repeat absolutely nothing inherently wrong with Telstra's core networks. An assessment of Telstra's networks by independent global experts has told us that we have world class network infrastructure, but we need to keep investing to stay ahead of demand by simplifying our products and platforms, retiring old technology and legacy systems that slow down and complicate how customers are served and by investing in materially greater capacity, growth and speed. We anticipate that demand for our services will only continue to grow. And so to meet this demand and to extend our network leadership, in August this year, we committed to invest up to an extra $3 billion over three years on a far reaching network of the future and digitization program. Now, Telstra has always sought to be a leader, and Telstra has demonstrated this many times. The launch of the next G 3G service in 2006 established Telstra as a clear market leader and saw distance ourselves from the competition.
Today, though, the competition has narrowed that gap somewhat. While we still have the best set of networks in Australia, it is time for us to distance ourselves again. This wave of new investment will digitise many of our core legacy processes to deliver significant customer benefits, reinforce our market differentiation over the longer term, and usher in a range of business benefits, including capital efficiency, reduced operating costs and increased revenue. It is a really exciting and transformational programme by which Andy Penn will provide a bit more detail in his presentation to you shortly. So let me now make some additional comments about the three pillars of Telstra's strategy, which are to focus on improving the customer experience, to drive value and growth from our core business and to build pathways towards future sustainable long term growth. Improving customer advocacy remains the most important priority, and the new investment that we'll be making will be in very large part focused on this critical initiative.
I think it's fair to say that over recent years we've been successful in our customer advocacy program in that there is not a single employee in Telstra today who does not now understand the importance of the customer. However, we also have to admit that we still do not always give our employees the tools they need at their fingertips to fix the customer's problem. The new investment that I've mentioned will seek to address this through the digitisation of legacy platforms and to enable our employees to deliver an exceptional customer experience that will differentiate us again from our customers. Second pillar of the strategy is driving value and growth from our core business, which is built around our networks. Over the past year, we've invested $4 billion in capital expenditure into our fixed and mobile networks, and we've now achieved 98% population coverage with 4G and we're on track to reach 99% population coverage by June 2017 if the regulatory settings for such investment remain favourable.
Our Telstra Air Wi-Fi network now has over 650,000 hotspots nationally, including over 4,500 public hotspots and over 1.1 million customers activated to use the Telstra Air Network. In relation to the National Broadband Network, Telstra is Australia's leading provider of services on the NBN with a market share of 50%, and we are seeing continuing strong demand from customers as this rollout scales up. We're also helping NBN Co with the rollout of the NBN network through a number of commercial agreements, including a $1.6 billion contract signed in April to provide planning, design, construction and construction management services within the Telstra HFC footprint until the expected end of the NBN network built in 2020. Now, of course, the NBN network will have one off and recurring impacts on our earnings. The shareholders will recall while the definitive agreements that we have signed with NBN Co and the government partially compensate us for the effect of the NBN network. The impact of the NBN goes well beyond those agreements through the impact of transitioning costs and ongoing operational access costs.
Overall, the forecast net effect on our business is a reduction of some two to $3 billion EBITDA per annum at the conclusion of the NBN network build. So our task is to offset these impacts over the next few years through a number of strategic initiatives, including driving value and growth from our core business, by reducing our fixed costs, enhancing share through digitisation, simplification and process improvements and building new growth businesses. So this is perhaps an appropriate moment to mention that, as we all know, Telstra operates in a complex regulatory environment. The formation of NBN Co highlighted this that while the NBN Co relationship is now strong and transparent, we still face other regulatory risks on a regular basis. One of these is the current declaration inquiry into domestic mobile roaming by the ACCC. And for those of you not aware, the declaration of domestic mobile roaming would essentially allow our competitors to utilise the Telstra network in areas where we have invested and provide coverage and where they have not.
Since privatisation, Telstra has spent many billions of shareholders dollars on building one of the world's largest and best networks. Customers in the cities and in the bush value the extra coverage very highly, and it's one of the main reasons why they buy our mobile services. One of our competitors is seeking regulation to close this competitive gap by cheaply riding on our network to avoid spending their own capital. Simplistically, this is the equivalent of an airline, say, wanting to provide services in regional Australia and instead of investing in his own airplanes to make seats available, it pushes for regulation to force another airline to reserve half the seats on its plans for its own customers. One can understand why some competitors would lobby for this. It would be a free Christmas present for them. But just as in the airline example, Telstra has carefully invested billions of dollars over many years building the best networks, and we do not think it is right that others be given a free ride on those networks.
If the ACCC decides to declare mobile roaming, they would absolutely be at the expense of you, the Telstra shareholders. It would also be very bad for Australians that live and work in regional areas is clearly why would anyone invest in maintaining or upgrading their regional networks when they can hitch a ride on someone else's network, and there's no longer any competitive differentiation from greater network coverage? It is a big issue. Your board and management are carefully explaining these effects to the ACCC. An increasing number of regional stakeholders and policymakers are also making their concerns with a proposal clear. And we remain very hopeful that sense will prevail, that we will keep your shareholders informed on any material developments. This leads me to our third strategic pillar, building new growth businesses, which is about realizing new opportunities that can leverage Telstra's core assets and strengths. In this, we are working on innovations that create new opportunities and possibilities in areas, including digital media, E-health, applications services, and software.
The successful integration of Pacnet over the past 15 months means that Telstra is now a leader in international connectivity with one of the largest submarine cable networks in the Asia Pacific region. Our joint ventures in China, through Telstra PBS, and Indonesia, through Telecom Telstra, both enjoyed strong demand for services this year. We also signed a memorandum of understanding with the Shanghai Institute of Medical Quality to make Telstra's health hospital data tools available in China. And network applications and services business has seen double digit growth each year for the last few years, and now generates annual revenues in excess of $2.7 billion. Telstra Health is now one of Australia's leading providers of eHealth solutions, and in May was selected by the government to deliver the National Cancer Screening Register under a five year contract. This year, we also announced the sale of most of our stake in Chinese online car sales site, Autohome, for what was a $1.8 billion profit on sale.
Autohome has been a incredibly successful investment for Telstra. And we remain very proud of the role that we played in rapid growth since we first invested back in 2008. We believe the time was right for us to realize significant value for shareholders. We do, however, retain a 6.5% interest and a board seat. Let me now make some comments on Telstra's ongoing work in the community. We are continually seeking to identify ways that can use our technology, skills and scale to operate more responsibly, better serve vulnerable customers and help safeguard the environment to create long term value for our company and the communities in which we operate. For example, this year, we helped more than 1 million vulnerable customers stay connected. We reached more than 59,000 people through our digital literacy programs, which includes tech savvy seniors, Telstra Digital ambassadors, and our cyber safety awareness programs. And we also provided $175 million of value through our social and community investment programs, which includes sponsorship and disaster relief, employee volunteering and giving, and our customer and community digital inclusion programs.
Under the federal government mobile blackspots program, we are deploying 429 new 3G, 4G base stations over three years to improve mobile coverage for over 400 communities across Australia. Last month, we activated the 60th mobile base station under this program. I'll turn now to our capital management strategy, which continues to be underpinned by a clear focus on maximizing returns to shareholders and maintaining financial strength and retaining financial flexibility. On the back of our results, we announced that we would return that to approximately $1.5 billion of capital to shareholders, comprising a 1.25 billion of market share buyback, which has recently been completed and a further 250 million on market share buyback. These buybacks are being funded from Telstra surplus cash and continued strong free cash flow generation, including that from the recent sale of Autohome shares. The advantage of a buyback program over a special dividend is that earnings per share is expected to increase to all shareholders as are then less shares on issue.
In addition, shareholders can now also elect to participate in our dividend reinvestment plan, which were reintroduced in response to earlier shareholder feedback. So, in conclusion then, 2016 was a good year for Telstra. A good year for its shareholders. It's been a year of increased change and competition. So, a year that has seen challenges from the outages to regulatory imposts and capacity growth. But despite these challenges, we delivered on our financial and other objectives for the year, and Telstra definitely remains Australia's best telecommunications and technology company. Indeed, we continue to be held in the highest regard around the world. I would like to take this opportunity to sincerely thank Andy Penn, his senior executives and the entire 33,000 strong Telstra team for their efforts in delivering the many achievements that I have described this morning. Looking forward, there's no doubt connected digital technologies will continue to drive change. And increasingly, we will see most people and most things connected through smart technologies, smart devices, and smart networks.
We can't even imagine what the world will look like in another 10 years. The challenge for Telstra is to harness the fantastic people, fantastic assets, and great opportunities that we have, stay ahead of our competition, and realize our vision to become a world class technology company that empowers people to connect. And I'm very confident that is exactly what we will do. With that, I will now hand over to your chief executive officer, Andy Penn, to comment on our operations for the year in more detail. (APPLAUSE)
ANDY PENN:
Well, thank you very much, Chairman, and good morning, everybody. Thank you for taking the time to be with us here this morning. As our shareholders, we value the opportunity to see so many of you and to hear your thoughts and to address your questions. I'd like to cover three things in my presentation to you this morning. Firstly, I will provide an overview of how the company has performed in 2016. Secondly, as many of you will be aware, and as the Chairman has already alluded to, we did have some network service interruptions in the first half of the calendar year. And so I will address what we're doing to rectify those. I will also discuss our responses to the issues and our work to ensure we continue to have the best networks in the country. Thirdly, I will comment on our announcement with our full year results to make a significant investment in our core business, a program that will transform customer experience and position Telstra strongly for the future. As we see, the rate and pace of technology innovation accelerating and the continued growth of data on our networks.
I will conclude by confirming our guidance. I would like to start though with an overview of 2016. Because 2016 was a year of strong performance for Telstra in what was an increasingly competitive market. We delivered against their guidance in our three key measures of income, EBIT and free cash flow. Net Profit After Tax from continuing and discontinued operations was up 35.9% to $5.8 billion. Importantly, given the competitive dynamics, we continue to attract new customers. We added 560,000 net new domestic retail mobile services and 235,000 net new domestic retail fixed broadband services. We also saw another 322,000 customers taking one of our bundled offerings. On the NBN, we added 289,000 net new customers, including our 500,000th customer on the NBN since the rollout started. This in fact coincided with NBN zone announcement of its 1,000,000th connected home. So, we're very pleased with our share in this critically important market. In fact, the monthly connection volumes of NBN for Telstra have doubled since February of this year.
That means that Telstra is now connecting one new customer to NBN services every minute. During the year, we also signed a number of significant contracts with NBN to both build and maintain their network. These contracts are worth over 1.6 billion over the next few years. Encouragingly, global enterprise services continue to grow strongly with income up 11.5%. And we're particularly pleased with our performance internationally with GS with revenues up 55.5% following the successful integration of Pacnet. Our fixed broadband business perform strongly with good customer wins leading to solid revenue growth. And we saw particularly strong performance from our challenger brand, Belong, which is now in its third year since launch. In mobile, there is no doubt that the market has been very competitive. Despite this, we have performed well growing EBITDA and our margins, even though underlying revenue remained flat. Mobile's performance in the business sector was strong and reflected the increasing use of mobile technologies to drive new solutions for industries, mobile workers and connected devices.
This year, we upgraded more than 2,000 network sites to 4GX, we achieved 98% population coverage for 4G and our customers experienced a 25% increase in the average download speed of their 4G devices On Air network. We also launched Australia's first voice over LTE, or VoLTE service, with more than 1 million customers now having access to high definition calling over 4G. And, of course, 5G is the next generation of wireless technology. And we are actively engaged in setting new international 5G standards, and getting ourselves ready to bring this technology to Australia. Only three weeks ago, and in partnership with Ericsson, we completed a successful real world trial of 5G in our Global Operations Centre in Melbourne. The test saw download speeds greater than 20 gigabits per second and confirmed that 5G will be a quantum leap in terms of speed, latency, and overall capacity and capability. And we intend to be at the forefront of this technology in Australia. 2016 was also an important year for our media business.
We signed long term agreements for the exclusive mobile digital rights for the AFL, the NRL and Netball, Australia's biggest broadcast and grassroots sports. These agreements underpin the huge and growing popularity of watching live sport on a mobile device, smartphones and tablets. Already, more than 750,000 of our mobile customers are enjoying premium sport and music content experiences through their Telstra Mobile plans. We're also using our media assets to enhance the value for our fixed line services. And customers now have more than 400,000 Telstra TVs in Australian homes in less than one year since launch. During the year, we took the next step in the evolution of our brand in line with our vision to become a world class technology company that empowers people to connect. We launched a new brand in July, and we are extremely pleased with the way in which it has been received. The financial results included a $1.8 billion profit on the sale of the majority of our shareholding in Autohome.
This transaction realized significant value for shareholders. Autohome has been incredibly successful investment for Telstra. And our decision to sell the majority of our shares reflects the opportunity to underpin the next phase of its growth through a strategic partnership between Autohome and the Ping An Insurance Group in China. We retain a 6.5% shareholding Autohome and a seat on the board of the company. The results this year also included a $246 million impairment of Ooyala, reflecting the changing dynamics in the intelligent video market and the business performance. Overall, earnings per share for the year was up 37.4% to 47.4 cents per share, or 31.6 cents per share on a continuing basis. As the chairman mentioned earlier, the board declared a fully frank dividend for 2016, a 15.5 cents per share, taking the total dividend for the year to 31 cents per share up 1.6% on the last financial year. Despite the strong results, we were disappointed that our advocacy result, which is we measure via the Net Promoter Score, declined four points.
What this means is that we did not deliver to the extent that we should on all occasions for our customers. And as a consequence of this, the portion of executive remuneration which is attributable to our customer results was not paid. There are a number of factors which influenced this, including the network service interruptions that we experienced in the second half of the financial year. Telstra is networks include approximately 230,000 kilometres of optical fibre cabling, 170,000 routers and switches, over 8,500 mobile network sites and more than 5,000 exchanges. And, of course, with this level of complexity and the volume of data and traffic on our network, it is true to say that occasionally issues do occur. However these interruptions had a wider impact and is acceptable. And we have apologized for that. Our energy since have been firmly focused on an extensive network review with input from international and independent experts to address these issues. As a result, in June we announced a $250 million program of investment of initiatives from within our current capital budgets.
This include a $250 million investment in mobiles to improve recovery times and network monitoring. $100 million investment in our core network to improve resilience and reliability, and a further $100 million investment to increase ADSL capacity to respond to the significant growth in customer demand from increased video streaming. Well progress with this program and have already substantially improved their mobile network recovery times. And in parallel, of course, we have continued to build our network capabilities. Now this work is critical because all of us are relying more and more on smart devices, smart technologies, and fast connectivity every single day. In 2013, mobile banking in Australia represented 24% of all banking transactions. In less than two years, that number has nearly doubled to 38%. Mobile video consumption has increased eight fold since 2011, with twice as many people watching four times as much video on a mobile device. At the recent Rio Olympic Games, the seven Telstra Olympic App simultaneously streamed 36 channels.
And over the two weeks of the games, the app was downloaded 1.5 million times and there were more than 37 million live streams of coverage. We're also seeing the same dynamic with the AFL and the NRL. Just over a week ago at the AFL Grand Final, 1.8 5 million minutes of action was watched on the official AFL App, up 134% on the previous year. And, of course, it was a similar story at the NRL Grand Final the following day where 1.1 million minutes were watched up 107% Oon the previous year. Now, if we've seen this much change in the last five years, just imagine what 2020 will look like as the rate and pace of technology innovation accelerates. Over the next five years our network traffic will grow enormously, driven by an explosion of media, digitization, and the use of cloud computing. Now, we've thought deeply about what this means for our business, what this means for our customers, and what our network needs to look like. We've thought deeply about how we will differentiate Telstra from others in this market.
Telstra has a history of making investments ahead of the curve to create strategic differentiation. And the time is right to do that again now. In August of this year, we committed to invest up to $3 billion in additional capital over the next three years, lifting our CapEx to sales ratio to 18%. We will be investing in our network in a way that delivers customer experiences, reduces our time to market, increases flexibility and reduces costs. This means we will be able to do things faster with lower latency, and offer products and services that can move seamlessly between fixed and wireless networks. And network will be smart, adaptable and scalable. That is the world of the future. And that is the world that we're investing in so that our customers can enjoy brilliantly connected experiences. Now, these investments are going to be made in three key areas. Firstly, in building the network of the future. The foundation of the program. Secondly, in accelerating the digitization of our business.
And thirdly, in improving our customers experience. Let me comment briefly on each of these areas in turn. We will also be discussing the program in more detail at our upcoming investor day next month. To deliver the future network experiences, we will use software defined networking architecture to build a more programmable, flexible and resilient network that we can scale easier and at lower cost. We will build the foundation for the next generation of wireless services 5G. In the very near term, we will further improve the service levels on our ADSL fixed broadband network to deliver faster speeds to more of our customers. from a mobile perspective, we will further enhance depth and breadth of the network. In metro areas, this will mean greater in building coverage in homes and in offices. We will also extend 4G coverage in regional areas, provided the regulatory settings remain conducive to investment. And in that regard, you've already heard our concerns from the chairman with regards to the ACCC's inquiry into domestic roaming.
Australia has one of the best mobile industries in the world. Despite our dispersed population, approximately 99.3% of the population enjoys mobile coverage today. And that is because to win in a highly competitive market, Telstra, your company, has disproportionately invested in regional areas to cement our place as the number one network for coverage and quality in Australia. This competitive dynamic that has benefited people in regional Australia would be put at risk if roaming were to proceed. For example, we are very pleased to be actively participating in round two of the government's mobile blackspots program. However, future rounds of this program would be seriously threatened by roaming. Now, of course, the principle advocate for mobile roaming is a foreign company that has chosen not to invest to the extent that Telstra has. A foreign company that is actually very capable of investing and a foreign company that has argued against roaming in other markets where it suits it to do so.
We are hopeful for the benefit of all Australians, particularly for you as shareholders, that this foreign companies regulatory campaign will not be successful. Thank you. The second area where we are investing is in digital enablement of our sales service and product experiences. The focus here includes purging complexity from our legacy systems and creating a world where customers can interact with Telstra on their terms. We are accelerating move of apps and services to the cloud, and overhauling systems such as billing and order to activate. We expect these changes will deliver customers a fundamentally better experience when they interact with Telstra, as well as create financial benefits for all shareholders. Underpinning these initiatives will be adaptable digital IT core architecture that will deliver a single access point to our underlying systems and move away from the complex systems environment that we have today. Ultimately, all of these investments are focused on delivering better customer experiences.
Customers will experience new rich communication services with capabilities such as voiceover LTE, integrated messaging, and video. Sporting events and other media will be greatly enhanced through the use of broadcast services and video streaming based on LTE Broadcast technology. The program will also open up a world of augmented reality, autonomous driving and robotics. For our business customers, new opportunities in productivity. Business insight will be offered as industries such as agriculture, banking, healthcare, logistics, and transportation services are all enhanced by the billions of sensors and connected devices that are arriving with the Internet of Things. Similarly, applications in areas such as drone technology and remote healthcare diagnostic will explode over the next four years. For business and enterprise customers both domestically and internationally, we will invest in our enterprise technologies and capabilities, particularly in cloud, in collaboration and in managed security.
ANDREW PENN:
And finally, we will also be investing to deliver greater reliability, greater resilience and greater security for all of our customers, as the growth in data volumes across our networks continues. In summary, this is a very significant program of investment that will position Telstra strongly for the future. Before closing, let me reconfirm our guidance for the year. In 2017, we expect to deliver mid to high single digit income growth and low to mid digit EBITDA growth. We expect CapEx, excluding externally funded CapEx to be approximately 18% of sales, and we expect free cash flow to be in the range of 3.5 to $4 billion. Our guidance assumes wholesale product price stability, and excludes any proceeds on the sale of businesses. It also excludes mergers and acquisitions and purchase of spectrum. The guidance also assumes that the NBN rollout will be in accordance with NBN's own 2016 corporate plan. The 2017 guidance excludes the $246 billion Ooyala impairment in 2016, and also excludes restructuring costs in 2017 of 300 to $500 million.
Finally, a 2017 income and EBITDA growth on a reported and guidance basis will be impacted by the wholesale pricing decisions that were implemented in 2016. There will therefore be a full 12 month impact from the mobile terminating access services and final access to termination decisions. In conclusion, I would like to thank the whole of the Telstra management team for their dedication, hard work, and the willingness to step up to the challenges this year. I would also like to thank the chairman and the whole of the board for their support and guidance. This is an exciting time for Telstra, we see a great future for your company, as accelerating technology innovation drives a world of rapid change and new opportunities. We need to take advantage of these opportunities at the same time as addressing the very considerable challenge of the two to $3 billion negative impact on our EBITDA from the migration to NBN. The ultimate mark of our success will be the quality of the experiences that we provide for our customers.
Because above all else, this is what underpins our strategy, guides our actions, and will define our future. We're working to take Telstra to the next level, to set a new standard of excellence to become a world class technology company that empowers people to connect. Thank you again for your time this morning. And I would now like to hand back to the Chairman. Thank you.
JOHN MULLEN:
Great. Thank you very much, Andy. So, we have four remaining items of business today. And I will shortly introduce and invite questions on these items. But before I do, I just need to outline the question and voting procedures for today's meeting briefly. When you registered this morning, you would have been given a card. Yellow cards are for shareholders who may speak and vote, blue cards are for those shareholders who may speak but not vote. And you will need your card to ask a question or to re-enter the meeting. I will introduce each item separately, and then invite questions from the floor. There are several microphones located in the room. If you'd like to ask a question, please move to the reserved seating area behind one of the microphones. Please show your car to the microphone attendant and give your name. As a courtesy to all shareholders, please also state your affiliation if you're not here today in your personal capacity, and the microphone attendant will then invite you to the microphone when your turn comes.
Just a bit of housekeeping in the interests of all shareholders though please only ask one question at a time. Do try to keep your questions and comments to no more than a minute or two to allow as many shareholders as possible to speak. If your question relates to Director election, the grant of performance rights to the CEO or to remuneration at Telstra, please ask your question when we come to that item of business. And please ensure that your questions are relevant to shareholders as a whole. If we can't answer your question fully here today, then we will aim to provide you with a response after the meeting. Similarly, if you have an individual customer or shareholder issue, please speak with one of our customer service staff here who will be able to assist you. They are located both in the room here, and in the customer service area outside wearing Telstra shirts. There are three items requiring a shareholder vote today. For shareholders with a yellow card, the voting boxes are on the back of your card.
We have received proxies from approximately 27,500 shareholders and direct votes from approximately 12,700 shareholders. The votes recorded four, and against each item will be shown on the slide behind me at the conclusion of the discussion of that item. The four numbers displayed will include proxies received and available to be voted by the chairman of the meeting. Telstra share registrar is Fran Kelly of Link Market Services Limited will act as returning officer in relation to the poll. The results of the poll will be available later today on both the ASX and our websites. Finally, a light lunch will be served at approximately 12:00. However, if the meeting is still underway at that time, we will not adjourning the meeting for lunch. So, I turn to item two on today's agenda, which is to discuss the company's financial statements and reports for the year ended 30 June, 2016. This item provides shareholders with the opportunity to comment on and ask questions about our financial statements and reports as well as the business operations and management of Telstra.
You may also ask questions of our auditor. As I mentioned earlier, there will be opportunity to ask questions on Director election, the CEO performance rights grant and remuneration when we come to those items a little later in the meeting. However, if you have a question about our last year's results or any general questions about your company, this is the time to ask your question. Just before we do go to the floor though, I would like to call on our auditor to address two questions we received which both related to whether the auditor was satisfied with Telstra's internal controls. So, that ends, I would just now like to invite Steve Ferguson our auditor, to the microphone to respond to these questions.
STEVE FERGUSON:
Thank you, Chairman. We received two questions. The first of those, that aside all internal controls to the satisfaction of the auditor. And the second question, is the auditor happy with the Telstra's internal controls. As part of our normal procedures, we identify and test the internal controls that are relevant to the external audit of the financial report. In our view, the internal controls that we identified and tested were at the level we would expect for a top 10 Australian listed corporate. Thank you, Chairman
JOHN MULLEN:
Thank you, Mr Ferguson. I would also add that from Telstra perspective, a comment on the reassurance that the board seeks on the system of internal control as part of his process to approve the company's financial statements each half year. To the end, the CEO and the CFO, provide a declaration required by the Corporations Act and the ASX Corporate Governance Principles and recommendation. That declaration gives a confirmation relating to the proper maintenance of the company's financial records and compliance with the accounting standards in the preparation of these financial statements. This includes a personal declaration from the CEO and the CFO that their opinion has been formed on the basis of a sound system of risk management and internal control, which is operating effectively. As outlined in our 2016 Corporate Governance statement, this declaration has been provided by the CEO and the CFO in respect to the financial statements for the 2016 financial year. So, I would now like to invite shareholders to move to microphone to ask any questions that you may have on this item.
Shareholders as I mentioned, this is the part of the meeting where you have the opportunity to ask any general questions, about the business operations and management of Telstra as well as the questions about our 2016 financial reports and results. The other items you'll have an opportunity to talk about when we get to them. It looks like we have some sort of a technical problem too. So, have we got any questions on any of the other ones? No? Yep, we do. Can we go to microphone three then?
SPEAKER:
Mr Chairman, I'd like to introduce John Hillman of Yagoona.
JOHN HILLMAN:
Mr Chairman, and indeed the CEO, thank you for your presentations. My question relates to a very serious matter raised by both of you. And that is, to put it in my terms, a totally unjustified attempted ride on shareholders assets by an overseas controlled company. Now, shareholders might like to have a pin, and something to write on for this. Mr Chairman, you and the CEO presented some good facts to us about what could happen if the government, in my view very foolishly, allows this raid on Telstra infrastructure to take place. So, my question is probably a rhetorical question, and it's just as much to every shareholder as to yourselves. And whilst you haven't gone this far, I will, Mr Chairman, would it not be very, very wise for every single shareholder and their friends and their family to contact not only their local, Lower House member of parliament but every senator in their state, and tell them that we would be horrified, and we would demonstrate that horror in the appropriate way as electors, if the government allowed a raid on Telstra's assets?
Now, I'm a shareholder from the float. And I'm sure there's a lot of people doesn't matter whether it's from the float or the bottom few days ago or whatever. Our assets are seriously under threat from this. And so, I'll repeat my question. And I guess, Mr Chairman you can't go as far as I can being the head of the company and the CEO can't go this far. So, in a sense, it's a rhetorical question. Would it not be very wise. Indeed, would it be foolish if we did not contact our lower house members and every single senator? And indeed, we can tell it to our state MPs as well, because they're all part of the same parties. So, I guess that's a rhetorical question. But I would strongly urge every person in this room to do just that, because that's what the government will listen to when we are trying to protect our assets and our future income stream. Thank you.
JOHN MULLEN:
Thank you, Mr Hillman. I think one just brief precision, it is not actually the government that is doing this it is the ACCC who is considering. They are different, the ACCC that is actually considering this declaration. So obviously, we feel strongly about it. As we've we've already said, it's an individual choice of any shareholder or other stakeholder as to whether they want to get involved in the debate or not. But certainly, if you do feel strongly, we would suggest that you make your views known to the ACCC as and when they call for submissions on the paper that they will issue shortly. Thank you. The next microphone, microphone two.
SPEAKER:
Chairman, I would like to introduce Robert Robson from Melbourne.
ROBERT ROBSON:
Mr Chairman, I'm greatly encouraged based on your record for shareholders as managing director of Asciano, and hope you can emulate that performance as Chairman of Telstra. And also, by the comment of your ex chairman at Asciano who said you were one of the great hardest working executives he'd ever met.
JOHN MULLEN:
Well, that makes me feel very good. Thank you very much.
ROBERT ROBSON:
But my question sir is, when I look at the annual report, I see that revenue is up about one and a half percent profit is actually down when you take away the extra ordinary or the abnormal sale, and your operating cash flow is marginally down and pretty flat. And you paid a dividend of 31 cents out earnings of 31 and a half cents. Do you see the way this trend, that this will be reversed in the future and the dividend policy will be maintained?
JOHN MULLEN:
I think it's safe to say that everybody would recognize that market conditions are difficult, they are more difficult than they have been for a long time in this industry. And we expect that the levels of competition and disruption to continue. That said, I think if you look at the track record of Telstra, it's got an amazingly strong performance of offsetting similar trends in the past. And, you know, we've seen a continual decline in fixed line revenues now, which are some of the most profitable revenues the company had that's been going on for many years. Census was another big profit contributor. We sold assets, CSL and others. So, despite all of those, the management team have done a very good job, I think of maintaining earnings. We're facing another similar challenge now, the decline of fixed line continues. We now have the effect of the NBN. If we mentioned in speeches, which over a number of years is going to have a two to $3 billion impact. So clearly, all the focus now of the management and the board is to ensure that once again, we overcome that new hurdle, and we keep our earnings level or growing, so that we can indeed continue to improve our dividend.
I can't predict what the dividend will be in the future, but it's certainly a firm principle of the company that we wish to see it grow. Thank you. Next microphone, one.
SPEAKER:
Thank you, Chairman. I have a question from Kevin Daly of Kensington in New South Wales.
KEVIN DALY:
Yes, Mr Chairman. About a fortnight ago, there was a statewide blackout in South Australia. I'm wondering if you could report to shareholders how Telstra's networks withstood the blackout and the aftermath.
JOHN MULLEN:
Well, as you know, the the blackout was caused by energy. But of course, that obviously impacted Telstra directly as well. The battery life of our towers when there's only a few hours, Andy. So, once once the energy supply goes longer than that, then those towers come down. But Telstra mobilized a huge emergency workforce to counteract all those impacts, and particularly focusing on the emergency services, making sure they had priority use of mobile towers that were being installed for that purpose. So, I think it's safe to say that Telstra came out probably one of the best of the various providers in recovering from that incident.
KEVIN DALY:
I was expecting a bit more quantitative detail on that. How many mobile towers were out and for how long?
JOHN MULLEN:
I'll have to ask Andy to answer that one.
ANDREW PENN:
In South Australia, our two main exchanges continued working through the whole of the period. And because we were able to switch the backup through diesel generators, that's where we provide that backup. And we were also in direct contact with the Premier's office in South Australia, and provide a lot of support. There are about 300 mobile towers which were variously sort of impacted one way or another through the period, as the Chairman said. I mean, obviously, the mobile towers rely on power. And then, we have obviously backup battery power, and then we're able to bring in what we call COW's, which is cells on on wheels. But they were about variously about for up to 300 mobile towers. But ultimately, we were able to restore services pretty quickly as soon as the power was available. And as the Chairman said, the state government was very appreciative of our support to them and of all emergency services responses we were really able to stand up and give them the support, as we were similarly in Victoria on Friday when Victoria experienced some high winds, which also impacted power supplies.
KEVIN DALY:
Thank you.
JOHN MULLEN:
Thank you, Mr Daly. Next microphone three.
SPEAKER:
Thank you, Mr Chairman. I'd like to introduce William Bill of Eastwood.
JOHN MULLEN:
Mr Bill.
WILLIAM BILL:
Yes. Good morning, Chairman. First of all, I'd like to thank a board member that's no longer here. And that was (UNKNOWN). I got to know him after one of the annual general meetings, and he was the most customer focused managing director or CEO I've ever met. And I do appreciate knowing him. And some of the things you've done for me is extremely appreciated. Now, I'd also like now, I'll go on after that. I'd also like to thank you for writing off my bill of $1.16. I have not been a shareholder for some time or a customer some time, but I kept getting a bill for $1.16. And I ignored it. And you finally written it off. I thank you for that. One of the other things that people get annoyed with Telstra is I have a mobile phone at the time and I'm only brought up this time, and three or four days after warranty it went, there was a fault in it, oh sorry, what sir? It's out of warranty. That does not go down well with a customer. And I've gone from other companies and even knows, you go overseas and a lot of people don't like our overseas when you ring up without a problem.
And this company I had a problem, I kept going at it. It's not a Telstra as I said. But in the end, I rang up sales. And I said, I'm gonna keep ringing of sales until I put me through an Australian person in that company. They finally put me through an Australian person and the Australian solved it were overseas couldn't. It really annoys a lot of people, the overseas call centres. And I don't know what you can do about that? Thank you.
JOHN MULLEN:
Well, let me respond in two parts to that. Firstly, we are acutely aware as management and board, that customer service generally can be improved in the company. We're actually spending the next couple of days in a strategy session between management and board addressing exactly that. We recognize that we have to do better, and that's one of the reasons why the extra two to $3 billion has been spent that Andy mentioned. So, we are going to really, really focus on trying to improve that. The call centre question, look, we, like many companies maintain a mix of local Telstra staff, local agencies and overseas partners to manage customer calls and service needs. And that provides us flexibility in how we meet the changing call volumes that run across the business. But everyone is held to the same standard and quality. So, if you didn't get the answer you wanted from an overseas call centre, it's not because that call centre is allowed to operate at any lower standards, that call centre obviously, did not meet your expectations, and they should have done.
But it's not a question of whether that person is based in Sydney, Melbourne, Manila or anywhere else. So, we absolutely aim for the same standard of response from everyone. Thank you. Next microphone two. I think, one. Sorry, one.
SPEAKER:
Thank you, Chairman. I have a question for (UNKNOWN) from Sydney. The Chairman, I'm afraid this is the light relief. First of all, I'd like Telstra to remain Australian because I think privacy is a very important thing and we're being more and more invaded wherever we go on the internet, and you don't have to give your name and you get six other people contacting you. But my question, this is it. It is, what is the future of the landline? You sorta hear that you, this is being lied to the house or you need the landline to have the internet or whatever it is picking. It never gets a message. And I've got everything, I've got, you name it it's there. I don't know how to work it, but I can answer the phone. But that's my question. Thanks. I know it's silly, but yeah. Thanks.
JOHN MULLEN:
Well, I would. I would answer that. I think Simplistically, the old fixed landline to a telephone just for voice is obviously disappearing and that will continue to disappear. But we think that there will be an ongoing need for high-volume data-fixed lines as households use more and more devices, and need more and more bandwidth, particularly where your equipment is fixed. Conversely, if you do most of your interactions on the internet or whatever on your mobile device, then clearly faster and faster wireless speeds will be important as Andy mentioned, 5G, et cetera. So, we see a world where both exist. So, the NBN's large pipe giving you a large amount of volume to the home will be needed, but increasingly so will mobile. Thank you. Next question from number two is it? Yeah.
MODERATOR:
Thank you, chairman, I have Stuart Brew from Adelaide.
STUART BREW:
Good morning, Mr Chairman. Well, my question, I suppose, is I started off with that Telstra has seen infinite wisdom this year. Decided it wouldn't send me an annual report, so I thought that wasn't a big deal. I'll get the answers to the questions I need and pick an annual report up here. On my arrival, of course, I was then told that they didn't have any here. So, bear with me when I go through these questions if they are in the annual report. So, all I had is the meeting, which has got two pages of the company's results for the whole year. Anyhow, under our business, and then there's our customers, what interests me is we've got down here, we got on average 55 million calls and 356 million data connections are made over the network each day. So, my interests would be what percentage of the whole is that so we can get some idea of the size of Telstra's actual work if you like and then it goes on actually saying 72% of Australia's small and medium businesses, SMB's are Telstra customers, which is obviously very, very good.
But it makes no mention of the big business customers, the BBS's as I would name them. How many of those that we wrote, what percentage of those? And there's one more under our values, which always interests me. I'll go to the last one where it says, find your courage. That, to me, worries me a bit. If this is part of our values, does that mean that if you come up with a really good idea, you've got to be courageous to go to your boss and say, 'Look, look, do this or is it some bullying?' I mean, this is a bit of a light-hearted thing, but it stands out find your courage as part of our values. And I suppose one final thing.
JOHN MULLEN:
I have to write this down. Hold on.
STUART BREW:
The final one is on disability and people with a disadvantaged background, and I worked that you employ 1.61% of the workforce have a disability. But as I noted in the paper today, the government has got 21.8%. So, although it may be employing 533 people with disability is good, we probably could do better anyway. So, they are my question.
JOHN MULLEN:
OK, let me have a shot at those then. Firstly, those volume statistics, that is, the total network that is being used. So, that is 100% of the network activity on a daily basis.
STUART BREW:
The question really was what about all your competitors?
JOHN MULLEN:
Oh, the whole market?
STUART BREW:
Yeah, that was my question. Well, presuming that you have (CROSS-TALK).
ANDREW PENN:
Maybe if I can sort of just respond. So, in terms of market share, typically, I mean, that tends to be measured by third party organizations. But if you look more sort of generally, Telstra's market share would be approximately 50% in the retail sector, which is obviously where the vast majority of those calls and data transmissions would originate on. So, you can assume that the total market is approximately double those numbers. And then in relation while I've had the mic, maybe chairman if that's OK, in relation to your question in relation to big business, we do business with pretty much most large companies in Australia, but our market share in the big business sector of the market would be at least the same scale as that of small medium business as well.
JOHN MULLEN:
Does that answer those parts of the question? Then the next one was, I think about courage.
STUART BREW:
Yes.
JOHN MULLEN:
So, look, I think what that's designed, it says we want people to speak up. We want our employers to put their views forward and challenge the established order. We want people to be innovative. And sometimes companies can be a bit stifling of that and cannot prevent good ideas filtering up from below. So, we make a real effort to ensure that we have an open and transparent environment where everybody can have a say and gets listened to. And I think last part of your question was on disability.
STUART BREW:
Yes.
JOHN MULLEN:
Yes. So, again, we are extremely focused on complete diversity across our workforce of everything, gender, race, all the other things and disability. And I think we've done probably better than most large companies in the disability programs that we have, but we can always do more and we will definitely be attempting to do that in the future.
STUART BREW:
Thank you very much, Mr Chairman.
JOHN MULLEN:
Thank you. Next, from microphone number one.
MODERATOR:
Thank you, chairman, I have a question from John (UNKNOWN) Meli of Wollongong.
JOHN MELI:
Thank you, Mr Chairman. John from a previous field. Good to see you as chair of Telstra. I should say that my experiences with Telstra over the years and I've been with Telstra since I've probably could talk have been nothing but exemplary, whether it's been overseas or local call centres. So, we all suffer frustrations, but that's part of life. One of the things though in relation to the ACCC review - the Telstra share price of just over $5 is probably where it was when we had three famous amigos coming to this country. Thankfully, none of the board members are still on the board 'cause that's a story in itself, and that's history. But it's been languishing and it's been moving sideways for something like about ten odd years. The ACCC review probably has a tendency to further erode that. I suppose the question is if the decision goes against Telstra, is Telstra, where what the potential impact would be and probably more of a comment, I would urge that Telstra board to fight it all the way through wherever it may be 'cause it is our funds, our money, our investment that the ACCC is playing with.
And equally, though, I would also probably a little bit more on a firmer note, say that as the comment was, well, it's up to shareholders to respond in whatever way they see fit. I actually look at it a little bit deeper and think that it's up to Telstra to provide a framework for the Telstra shareholders, 1.2 million shareholders to actually make sure in whatever way that we participate so that the ACCC is aware of the displeasure of the Telstra shareholders. I think there has to be a firmer position from the board and from Telstra to marshal its shareholders to respond to the ACCC decision. But in short, are we aware what the impact would be if the decision goes against Telstra?
JOHN MULLEN:
Yes, we are. Obviously, the challenge with giving you an answer on that is we don't know how the decision could go against us. Is it total roaming? Is it partially? Is it some areas? Is it some technologies, et cetera? There is no single answer to that. But obviously management have modelled all of the possible options and we're very aware of those. Secondly, we are taking this very seriously and we are responding strongly about it. And you can be assured that both board and management will leave no stone unturned in trying to address it. Thirdly, I think for individual's responses, I don't think it's up to the company's place to actually provide that for you. I think we can certainly provide you with whatever information you want so you can understand the issue properly. But ultimately, I think it's up to you to formulate a view and to make that heard by submitting to the ACCC, and we can certainly explain how that process works for you if that makes it easier. Thank you. Next, the microphone two.
MODERATOR:
Thank you, chairman, I have John Hutchison from Sydney.
JOHN HUTCHISON:
In a future question, I reveal that when I was with Telecom, everything was great. It was run by my mate, Ken Douglas. With Telstra has been an absolute disaster, but that's not for this question. It will be for a later question. I specialize in investment analysis, and look for the situation of the return on investment over time. First of income, fully franked dividends, and asset growth in the company's assets in the background. Now Telstra has a good reputation in terms of the income size. But what's the situation or how can you reveal to us that there's an asset growth in the background so that the cost of living will be competed with in five to ten years? I'm not talking about the share price, the gamble price. I'm talking about what setting in the account, in the bank, in assets that if the company was wound up, we would get a satisfactory thing. So, what is the situation with asset growth and how are those revealed in the balance sheet?
JOHN MULLEN:
I'm not sure I totally understand your question, but if it's how do we see that the growth and value of our business, and that is obviously disclosed in the balance sheet of the company. And that depends very much on our earnings growth and how much profit we make each year, which ultimately the residual ends up on the balance sheet. And we also, of course, try to increase our dividend along the way. But that is all transparent.
JOHN HUTCHISON:
What I'm really saying is, are you spending all the money that we make year-by-year or are you keeping something in the bank behind us?
JOHN MULLEN:
Well, we're paying a percentage of our annual profit in dividend is very high in this company. It has traditionally been in the 90%, which we continue to do. We also make sure that any investments that we make exceed our current return on invested capital and also EPS accretive, earnings per share accretive so that we are adding value when we spend money, not diminishing value. Does that answer your question?
JOHN HUTCHISON:
Let me say yes. The 10% doesn't impress me that you're keeping behind.
JOHN MULLEN:
Sorry, I missed that one, the 10%.
JOHN HUTCHISON:
The 90% going out in dividends. (INAUDIBLE)
JOHN MULLEN:
Yes, and as you know, we had 4.4 billion dollars of surplus cash flow at the end of 2016, which is why we returned some of that to shareholders. And we've done that previously and we'll do it again.
JOHN HUTCHISON:
Is it going to be enough in five years time?
JOHN MULLEN:
We very much hope so. That's what we are all here to do is to continue to deliver earnings growth so that our dividend can be maintained or increased during that period. I can't predict where we'll be in five years, but I can assure you that's what we're all working to achieve. If you could speak to the microphone, maybe so other shareholders can hear what you're saying.
JOHN HUTCHISON:
I'm saying as an investment analysis, you've got to be able to have have a go at predicting what the situation is in five years time. I mean, I can tell you in some industry what it's going to be in five years time. You want to be able... You won't get at 100% right, but you'll get it in the right direction.
JOHN MULLEN:
Of course, and that is what board and management spend their time focusing on ensuring that a strategic five-year plan looking forward does deliver ongoing growth. We mentioned earlier that we're going to lose some two or $3 billion of current earnings through the arrival of the NBN. So, management are going to have to find ways of recovering that to get us back to where we need to be and that we intend to do.
JOHN HUTCHISON:
Thanks for your answer.
JOHN MULLEN:
Thank you. Next, microphone number one.
MODERATOR:
Thank you, chairman, I have a question from Anthony Grima of Maroubra.
ANTHONY GRIMA:
Mr Chairman, thank you for taking my question. Recently, we have seen a fee for monthly billing statements, and since August, a fee of $1 was introduced for not paying the bills electronically. I accept that there is a cost of postage to print and send statements. However, Mr Chairman, what is the cost of your clients printing their own statements, calling to one of your branches and paying their bills in cash.
JOHN MULLEN:
I know this is always a vexatious question. But we are moving more and more to an online world. And I think as Andy said earlier, banking is no different from 24 to 38% where all have been transacted online. Ultimately, I think that's where we have to get to. And there is an increasing cost to companies of maintaining older paper in-person-type transactions. The charges are very minimal, but we would like to work with shareholders and customers and everyone who interacts with us to move more and more to a digital interaction in the future.
ANTHONY GRIMA:
What about if people can't or haven't had any credit cards or don't believe in credit cards?
JOHN MULLEN:
Well, the option is still there. We're not taking it away. There's just a a small charge imposed for that facility.
ANTHONY GRIMA:
And again, the client is coming to your offices and paying you in cash, what is the cost involved in that?
JOHN MULLEN:
It's still obviously more than an online interaction, and that's where we're trying to ultimately get to, where we don't need to have personal contact, not just because it saves money, but because it's actually more efficient and delivers a faster, more efficient response for the person paying the bill as well. But for those who don't want to do that, we still maintain the physical capacity.
ANTHONY GRIMA:
Thank you.
JOHN MULLEN:
Thank you. Next question, microphone number two, please.
MODERATOR:
Thank you, chairman, I have Peter Starr from Sydney.
PETER STARR:
Yes, good morning, John. And good morning, ladies and gentlemen, fellow shareholders. I'm here representing a number of shareholders. And the first thing I like to say is David Thodey asked me to send his apologies. He's in the Gold Coast this morning delivering a speech. Those who aren't aware, he's now the chairman of the CSIRO. To you, Mr Limb, David asked me to say, do you enjoy more time with your family? And you've done a great service. John, to reiterate another gentleman who spoke, you've done great work at Asciano. I hope you do the same here.
JOHN MULLEN:
Thank you.
PETER STARR:
On behalf of the shareholders I represent, we also believe that Elizabeth Fisher from the Australian Shareholders Association is here and I want to address the ACCC issue in a few minutes. I'd also like to say on behalf of the shareholders I represent, we'd like to pay our enormous respect and hard working to Miss Catherine Livingstone, who did step down. Catherine, I know you'll be listening. We wish you all the best in your future endeavours. You did exemplary service for this company, and the guidance and the due diligence you paid and brought to the board was outstanding. So, we wish you all the best. I guess it's remarkable that we have Andy Penn there. David was the one who hired you and you're doing a remarkable job. Even though we had some outages, you didn't bury your head in the sand and we didn't have to be dragged before a Senate inquiry like the banks. So, that's to your credit, Andy. Yes, thank you. In relation to the issue, the company, I named the company in case you don't know its Vodafone folks.
I don't want to spend money here. But they're listed under Hutchison and their shares are worth one cent. Our shares are worth over $5. There's a big difference. They want to coat tail on to us. And you people will all pay the price. Well, let me tell you, it's a very simple exercise right to the ACCC right to Rod Sims, you'll all have a chance. It's a simple, very exercise. You people are all shareholders. This will affect you if it goes through. I can't strongly tell you anything different. It is really, really serious. It's a free ride if they get that and all of us will pay the price for that, and it's wrong, absolutely wrong. I'd like to go further, it's criminal, just wrong, absolutely wrong. I'm outrageous about it. It's just totally wrong and the shareholders I represent, we will absolutely be making representations and I would encourage Elizabeth Fisher, who's here from the Australian Shareholders Association, to make representations to on the shareholders she represents. Finally, John, welcome aboard.
I'm sure you do a great job. Nora, it was nice to hear you speak too. I've known you for a long while, and Warwick doing well there, so thank you.
JOHN MULLEN:
Thank you, Peter. Thank you for the kind sentiments for David and Catherine. We'll make sure those are passed on, I think with respect to the (UNKNOWN). I think we've probably said what has to be said. And obviously we appreciate your support and anyone who is willing to write to the ACCC about it obviously would add value. Thank you. Next, microphone three.
MODERATOR:
Thank you, Mr Chairman, I have another question from William Bell from Eastwood.
WILLIAM BELL:
Good morning, again chairman. Now, this time, I'm going to go on DOT, and for anyone who doesn't know what DOT is, it's Digital Office Technology. It is something that Telstra really got wrong. And I will tell you why. First of all, one of our phones went down at the place I work at. We had to get a technician out to change the modem. Again, we had a couple of months or quite a long time later. We had another phone go down. I rang up Telstra and I got on to a service place in Townsville. It was very helpful. Talked to him for about half an hour. Then he said, I'll get back to you and then three and a half hours later. I give in. I can't fix this. Telstra introduced a system where they didn't know what they were doing. Not doing enough research on a product. What happens is with DOT, if you virtually have just a standard phone and a modem, fine, it will work perfect. But once you put it on a server, the DHCP on a server, what happens is if they reset a phone, you cannot get it back. Because basically, what Telstra are the DHCP is off, we'll reinitialise that on the router.
Once they do that, they knock all the email off the company. And they cannot get the phone back only because I got to know David Thodey, basically, I got a senior technician from Telstra, our IT from External IT come in. Two hours, it took them to work out how to do it on the server. And then once they're done on the server, I can now reset any phone in the business, a factory reset and get that phone working again without Telstra. I don't know if Telstra has been able to call every call centre and explain what happens when DHCP is on the server compared to a modem. It is totally different. And you can knock out two phones and yet they cannot get it back only because of David and what they've done, we got these phones working and hopefully and I don't know if Andrew can answer this. Hopefully, the DHCP problem can be fixed. With the phone (UNKNOWN) and also when you come out, it's got 'Oh, I want to add a name.' So, you go into your directory, 'Oh, I want, Chris. Oh, 111, I've now got city.
I showed the technician, Oh, it's on a server. I go into and have a look at the IP address. I log in to the phone, put the name, put the phone number, put the mobile phone and click on. And I've finished.
SPEAKER:
The technician had never seen that. Something I could do better than a technician, which is very unusual, I gather, but I did it. The other thing was (UNKNOWN). Basically if you get it right, you can do the whole phone system. And you can log on to any phone in the office, six phones, I can log into any phone and actually put a new number in every single phone in the office from one computer, and that is something technology wise that Telstra should be pushing. Thank you very much.
CHAIRMAN:
Right. Look, obviously, I'm not aware of the individual details of the problem that you had, and there are people here who, separately from this, can actually talk to you in more detail about that. What I would say though is that we are very aware that these sort of frustrations are the things that cause customer angst. Our networks are the best. They are good, but sometimes accessing them, on boarding them, bills, whatever it is of the areas and the sort of problems that you've mentioned are the things that frustrate people. That is very much the effort that Andy and the team are now making with this extra expenditure to address those and make a digital interaction with the company so that you can fix things yourself, or we can fix them online without having to send technicians out for three hours.
SPEAKER:
That's correct. The thing is, where was the research done to find out, I've got this product that I can use in these many fields. Where was research done to say yes, I've now got all these problems and I can know what to do?
ANDREW PENN:
Look, I mean, the only thing I would sort of say, in addition to the chairman's, to Mr. Bell is, look, DOT is very successful product for us. You're absolutely right, there were some teething problems when the product was first launched and this is one of the dilemmas that we always face because technology is moving at such a rapid pace that we are keen to bring the best of technology to our customers where we can. But as we just heard from Mr. Bell, its a complex business environment, and getting that absolutely right in every customer's circumstance is something that we don't get right every time, but we are very focused on it. We've invested a lot of money in DOT, and DOT is actually going really well now. So I can only apologize to Mr. Bell for your particular experience. And if there were any residual matters, please do speak to one of our people here and we will follow that up. But we will continue to be investing, as the chairman said, in trying to improve the digitized interaction that our customers have with Telstra in a world where this technology innovation is rapidly growing.
SPEAKER:
Thank you (UNKNOWN). Next, microphone number two. Thank you, chairman. I have Ian Willis from Brisbane.
IAN WILLIS:
Morning chairman, directors, fellow shareholders, my name's Ian Willis, I'm a shareholder down from Brisbane. Couple of little things, we've largely sold out (UNKNOWN). There was an announcement last year regarding a possible tie up with a group in the Philippines that seems to have disappeared into the cloud. We're now a large player in a mature pond, Australia. There are a lot of small add on bolt on programs that Mr (UNKNOWN) talked about. But are these programs going to generate sufficient income to recover that 2 to $3 billion we'll lose when the NBN rollout is finished. On Page four of the annual report, there's productivity improvements. Productivity improvements can go to a certain degree, but if you cut back and cut back and cut back, ultimately, then you're going to have system failures. And is there any program of large scale growth in the future?
CHAIRMAN:
Yes, right. Let me address those, in turn. Firstly, the investment in (UNKNOWN), that's been an extremely successful investment for us from a stake of only cost the company a few hundred million dollars originally. We were able to sell it that business for $2.1 billion which we think represents exceptional shareholder return, and we felt that we should capitalize on that opportunity as it arose. And management worked very hard to get that sale across the line. We have retained a residual six and a half percent in the company and the board seat, so we are still involved, and that residual stake is still worth a lot of money. On the Philippines, that was a normal business process of investment. Management saw an opportunity to invest in a mobile market where there were two incumbent players, both offering very poor levels of service and very basic technology, but quite a high margin of returns that those companies were making in that market and it looked like an attractive opportunity. However, the more that management team went into looking at the risks involved, (INAUDIBLE) have to read the papers about some of the stuff going on in the Philippines today, ultimately, management concluded that they would not recommend going further with that investment.
Even though on paper it looked good, the risk was too high and so the board obviously supported that. I think that's the normal process that should go on in the company to come up with ideas. You debate them, you look at the risk profile and you say yes or no. Now, neither of those mean that we've in any way lost any appetite for growth to the country. I think you've seen our investment in (UNKNOWN). Recently in Asia we're now the leading cable owner in Asia, and I think that will continue. We have to be selective about what we invest in. We need to invest in things we know. Either the geographies we know or in products we know. We're very unlikely to go and invest in some completely different business in another part of the world. I think that would be taking too high a risk with shareholders funds. But clearly, we see that two to three billion gap and we have strategies both internally. So, the majority of the $3 billion extra that we're going to spend is on improving our core products and our core business.
Exactly the sort of problems that the gentleman over there was mentioning. 'Cause if we get those right, we think we can gain more market share, we can command better pricing and there's a big return from that. At the same time, we'll still be looking at the international opportunities, particularly in Asia.
IAN WILLIS:
Thank you.
CHAIRMAN:
Thank you. Next microphone number three.
SPEAKER:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker, I have Yvonne Chen of Bellevue.
YVONNE CHEN:
Morning Chairman and the board. I'm a shareholder as well as a customer of Telstra. I got a comment and a question. First of all, my comment is, since I took up the internet few years ago, I have very good service from your tech support as well as the sales staff overseas as well as in Australia. So therefore, I have no problem with service. Second is my question. I have a frustration, a constant frustration of getting overseas scamming calls. Is there a way to actually stop those call despite whether we are unlisted numbers or actually just listed numbers. I have tried the government, no avail, and I thought perhaps I shouldn't give up and I try Telstra as well. So please enlighten me chairman.
CHAIRMAN:
Thank you very much Miss Chen. Firstly, on your kind words about the tech support. It's good to hear that. And it's in no way an excuse but we have 17 million mobile customers. The great majority of them get very good service but do we have some failures? Yes, of course we do, and we have some frustrations and even one is too many. But the great majority of Telstra customers get a very good service or we wouldn't be where we are, but thank you very much for that comment. Regarding scam calls, et cetera, I'm afraid it's a plague of society, generally. I mean I get them almost nightly as well as most people I would think in this room. And as fast as barriers and controls are established to try to stop it, so these people find other ways around it. And particularly, I think, the phishing emails and things which (INAUDIBLE) do more damage when people click on attachments to emails and that if they download malware and all sorts of nasty things or even wipe out your computer. I can really sympathize with those who've experienced that.
So, there's nothing particularly that we can do if somebody calls you, but you should hang up straightaway if you're not sure who the person is on the other end of the phone, and you can also report the call to the ACCC who will do their best to try to follow up and understand where those calls are coming from. Some of them are systemic, so there are literally thousands of these calls coming from one source and the authorities can do something about that. But when it's an individual call to an individual person, it's very difficult. So, I'm putting out the answer you want to hear, but I think we just have to be very vigilant all of us in society today.
YVONNE CHEN:
With our technology, surely we can do something.
CHAIRMAN:
Well, the problem is, if someone wants to ring you, how can we tell technology wise whether it's me saying hello or it's somebody trying to do harm? I mean, unless you know where that call is coming from, so we can block numbers. If you want a silent number, we can do that as well. So, those opportunities are there. But if someone has your phone number, it's very difficult to actually know what they're gonna call you about.
YVONNE CHEN:
They even call and say they're from Telstra and they have certain information that's actually quite related to Telstra. And I thought, well, Telstra shouldn't be calling me.
CHAIRMAN:
Yeah. Well, the banks have it even worse, I think. Obviously the same reason people calling bank customers pretending to be people other than who they really are. I think we just have to be really, really vigilant and be suspicious. and if you hang up on a friend every now and again, that's probably not a bad thing. Yeah. Thank you. Number two. Yeah. Microphone two.
SPEAKER:
Thank you, chairman, I have George Sinclair from Bronte.
GEORGE SINCLAIR:
If either John or Andrew could please comment on whether Telstra has any plans in terms of the current ownership or investment in Foxtel and the increased competition, I guess in the video streaming market and also the on demand services.
CHAIRMAN:
Yeah. Well, Foxtel is a very important investment for us and we are in continual discussions with other shareholders about the future of Foxtel. At this stage, that hasn't reached any particular conclusion but there are a number of potential options open which are being discussed by both sides, both shareholders. And we remain very very vigilant about the future of that industry and make sure that we maximize value for our shareholders in the long run. There's no immediate answer to it, but we are very mindful of the changes going on in the dynamics of that industry.
GEORGE SINCLAIR:
And it continues to be profitable?
CHAIRMAN:
To be profitable? Yes it does.
GEORGE SINCLAIR:
Thank you.
CHAIRMAN:
Thank you. Microphone four.
SPEAKER:
Thank you, chairman. I'd like to introduce Adrian Evans from Traralgon, Victoria.
ADRIAN EVANS:
I'm not sure who to direct my question to. Many of you here, this room at this meeting would not be aware that Traralgon is only a small regional town in Victoria of about 25,000 people. So, we're not huge and lots of people don't have an idea of where we are. However, I happen to work for a very, very small business whose accountant in his, I guess you could say in his (UNKNOWN) I guess, suggested that we switch the accounting system I use to do all my financial data to pass on to the accountant via the Internet. Now, I was a bit sceptical of this but I thought, OK, I'll go with what my boss wants because that's what his accountant wants. And when I'm paid a fee of $45 an hour and I sit there for 15 minutes out of every hour, sometimes even longer, because I'm in the middle of recording a transaction or figuring out how to print out my superannuation report so that I can file that with the ATL, it actually starts becoming a very costly process. Now, I'm not the only one in Traralgon who's had these problems.
Because I was speaking to my daughter the other day and she actually rang me and she said, "Mum, I've had the internet on at home with Telstra for two months. The first two weeks I had it connected, it didn't work at all. It was on sporadically for about two weeks. It's been on and off since. I've just been on the phone with Telstra for the last hour and a half, I've still got no internet. Can I come up to your place and connect to your Wi-Fi?" I said I'm just sitting here. I'm the only one here. Nobody else here in the house, but I don't have Telstra internet, I've actually got Southern France. I said to her, "Come up, use the internet." So, she sat there, and over a period of 45 minutes did all the stuff she had to do. So, what I actually as, I guess you could say as a customer because my boss uses Telstra, as well as our daughter who's a Telstra customer would like to know is, what's going on with the internet service we have in Traralgon? Why is it so unreliable? When can we actually look forward to something that is much more reliable?
Because from my own point of view, sitting there twiddling my thumbs for 15 minutes and sometimes longer on every hour is something that I know from my bosses point of view is not a very effective use of my time. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN:
Firstly, I didn't fully understand whether the challenges you had in your own business were because of the financial system that you were using or whether it was the internet speed and connection or both.
ADRIAN EVANS:
It's the fact that the internet drops out. I'll be in the middle of trying to print a report and it just drops out. And I will sit there for, like I said... I've sat there for up to an hour to try to get it back connected again. And then I'll just say to my boss, "I'm going for a walk, I'll come back. It might be a back on by then."
CHAIRMAN:
Yeah. Well, obviously that shouldn't happen. If you do have a little bit of time today, we have people in here and outside when we go out after who can try and address your issue now while you are here. So, I commit to you that we will do our very best to resolve that. Obviously, I don't know the cause of it, and I don't think anybody here would right now, but it shouldn't happen, and you have our commitment that we will get it fixed.
ANDREW PENN:
Maybe I could add. I do know where Traralgon is. I was there in June and I'm not aware of any specific issues relative Traralgon, but Jenny West, who's Aboriginal general manager here, if she just stands up, she will come and see you after the formal proceedings and talk to you specifically about your issue and what we can do about that, but I apologize.
ADRIAN EVANS:
But the other issue, I guess, is that somebody waiting on a phone line for an hour and a half for somebody to come back and address the issue, is that because Telstra has closed so many call centres here and instead send them overseas? You have to look at a balancing issue, I think, where is how long do you actually keep your customer on a hold line for before you answer their call?
CHAIRMAN:
I can only agree. Again, I would reiterate my commitment. We will try to address this for you today while you are here. It should not happen. Thank you. Microphone one, please.
SPEAKER:
Thank you, chairman, I have a question from Christina Wu of Strathfield.
CHRISTINA WU:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the board. I only have one question. I have been a Telstra shareholders from the beginning since Telstra listed, and I'd like to know why, in spite of your good performance, increased market share and you know, we've had very good performance over the years. Why hasn't THE share price performed? Why hasn't the Telstra share price performed? It's been very disappointing. Particularly in the last few months it has gone backwards, particularly with the share buyback and so on.
CHAIRMAN:
Look, it's not trying to avoid the question, but it's very hard to comment on specific share price movement of any stock on the ASX. There are a wide range of factors that influence share prices. All we can do is what is in our control, which is to try to deliver the best possible performance from our company. And then we would hope that ultimately the share price will reflect that. And that is very much what we're trying to do.
CHRISTINA WU:
Is it also your interaction with the analyst as well? Perhaps you should have greater interaction with financial analysts.
CHAIRMAN:
We have very extensive interaction with financial analysts and institutional shareholders. I do that personally as chairman once or twice a year. I've just completed doing that, seeing some 26 of our biggest customers together with our investors, together with our investor relations staff, and depend on the management team to a much more extensive one twice a year after each half year's results. So, we are very very much interacting with all of that (UNKNOWN) of the investment base on a regular basis.
CHRISTINA WU:
OK.
CHAIRMAN:
Thank you. Next microphone. One again, I think so.
SPEAKER:
Thank you, Chairman, I have a question from (UNKNOWN) of Beecroft. Thank you, Mr... (CLEARS THROAT). Excuse me. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm just wondering about the $11 billion that Telstra was supposed to receive in respect of the NBN, whether it's all been received or when it's going to be received. And also how is it traded in the books of account?
CHAIRMAN:
The 11 billion is the net present value of all of the revenue streams that were coming over a longer period from the NBN, and that's comprised of one off payments. It's comprised of connection payments, it's comprised of ongoing payments for the use of our ducts and other infrastructure. So, each of those as we receive payments during the course of the year and I think in 2016 it was some 760 million, something like that, we received directly from NBN, that will continue to accelerate over the next two or three years through to about 2020 and then it will start to decline again and just go to the recurring revenues that we get from the use of our ducts and other equipment. And then on top of that, we've got other one off deals like the 1.6 billion HFC contract that Andy mentioned earlier that wasn't considered at the time when we derived that 11 billion net present value.
SPEAKER:
So it's treated as revenue?
CHAIRMAN:
Its treated as revenue. Yes.
SPEAKER:
Thank you.
ANDREW PENN:
And chairman, we do provide a separate disclosure of all of the NBN payments in our investor relations material. So if you go to the website and you access the Investor Relations presentation for the full year results, you will see the schedule, a page in there, that itemizes the NBN payments.
SPEAKER:
Thank you.
CHAIRMAN:
Thank you. And next, microphone three.
SPEAKER:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I have Eric Chen of Kempsey.
ERIC CHEN:
Good morning, chairman and the board. I'm rather disappointed to hear from you that with the advancement in technology and you intend to invest so much more in future technology, and yet at the same time you were telling us just now that you cannot stop the scamming calls from overseas. I thought you would have that kind of technology by now to detect they are coming from overseas and they are scam. Because we know they're all scamming people. The minute I pick up the phone, I hear it, I can hear this very fuzzy, poor quality call coming through, and I know there is a scam call. And indeed is always worked out that way that they are scamming. Now, since you cannot stop them, Telstra cannot stop them from coming through and you advice just to put down your phone, I think that's probably the second best solution. Maybe, but the better solution would be to play along with them, play ignorance. Just asks them what they want. How to go or what they want or what they want you to do. Like in the instance where they say, (UNKNOWN) having some bucks coming through in one hour, you just turn on your computer and they'll tell you to doing certain things, just play along with them.
If you can spend 15 minutes with them and everyone in Australia do that.
SPEAKER:
I think you will kill the industry within three months. So why can't we do that? Instead of telling people to put down the call, It only takes them five minutes. They don't have to employ any more people. If they have to spend 15 minutes or 10 minutes with every single scam call, you kill them in three months. So I think Australia should be doing this first.
MULLEN:
That sounds like very interesting advice. (LAUGHTER) Look, firstly, I'd say it's not that things aren't being done, we're involved in and we can tell you there's a huge amount of work that goes on with the authorities trying to stop this. Particularly around, not so much calls that just annoy you or whatever, but around these phishing attempts and people who are after money from your bank account. And so there's an enormous amount of work going on. What I'm saying is; it's very difficult, very difficult thing to address. Many of us can tell a call. I mean, I can usually tell, you can usually tell, but they tend to often target the vulnerable, the elderly, that people who are not so quick to recognize that it's a scam call. So that's why we would advise if you're unsure, just hang up. Don't go there. But, and I wouldn't want to give the impression that we're just sitting here saying sorry, there's nothing we can do. The authorities are extremely aware of it and we interact with them all the time on trying to improve and stop these sort of things.
If it gets really bad, then you apply for a silent number. And hopefully, that gets rid of; virtually all of it. Can we expect phone number one?
SPEAKER:
Thank you, Chairman. I have a question from Robert Caterson from Engadine. Thank you, Chairman and CEO and the board. My question is with customer service within Telstra at the present time. It's quite easy to go online and buy something from Peter's of Kensington or an airline ticket or something, you know, quite plain and simple. But to deal with your telecommunications requirements, at the present time, is damn well difficult to deal with Telstra at the present time. We've heard a number of people in this audience today express their frustration with the level of customer interaction we have. Now, this is the front door of this business. If you can spend billions of dollars in creating a world-class technology situation for our customers, but you cannot spend a few 100 million, I don't know how much it will cost to create a customer-friendly customer interface for this business. You are lost because at the present time, with my experience, I had to walk out of a Telstra shop. And I was very upset because I'm a Telstra shareholder, I've been a Telstra employee and they're very uncomfortable.
I had to go down the road to a competitor to buy a new mobile phone recently. With the level of frustration, I've had with Telstra and other people. Now, you fobbed off another person in this audience, in terms of the billing charges, right? Now, David Thodey got rid of a lot of those mosquito-like billing charges that have reappeared on our bills. Now, I know you're trying to contain costs and I know that you're confronting a challenge from Australia Post in increasing their postage charges. But if that creates a level of frustration with our customers, then obviously you're leaving the door open, even by a few, you know, percentage in market share, but that's going to lose us money. Secondly, with these natural disasters, even locally, if we have bad weather, there isn't enough reaction time now within our exchange networks to keep our mobile phone services and our landlines. Now, the amount of business this company will lose, because we're not actually reactive, proactive towards dealing with these natural disasters; and I've raised this at a previous forum, and these situations have not been addressed.
Now I need the board's commitment to spend as much money as I need to improve our customer interface.
MULLEN:
Thank you for that comment. On the first part of your, statement, I can only agree. We all share, everybody here along this table, we share your concern that our customer service is not where it should be. We have spent billions of dollars as you said, on networks, and that has produced Australia's best networks. We now need to replicate that with the customer experience. And the expenditure that Andy Penn mentioned earlier, the $3 billion, is going primarily into exactly that. It is simplifying our systems, simplifying products, eliminating old legacy platforms that create complexities and inability to allow you to interact quickly, digitally, as you should be able to. So that is you have our absolute commitment to your question. That is exactly what we're going to do over the next three years. We're going to spend that money wisely. But we're going to spend it aggressively on improving the customer experience.
SPEAKER:
At the end of the day, you need people to listen to you.
MULLEN:
Of course. Absolutely. To your last point about disasters, I think that may be a little bit unfair. I think Telstra's response to natural disasters has actually been pretty exemplary. And particularly as Andy mentioned earlier, in South Australia, we were lauded for the efforts and the speed with which we did get operations back up running. And that's repeated, there's hardly a week that goes by without some sort of disaster event somewhere in Australia. And even if it's very localized, and Telstra, I think, is actually quite good at that.
SPEAKER:
So you can guarantee me that exchanges won't go down. That we've got the reactivity within our exchanges, that the phone system won't go down?
MULLEN:
We have a degree of control at the Telstra board, but I cannot control meteorological events that adverse Australia
SPEAKER:
I know the meteorological events. But they should be triggered within our exchanges and turn on generators, to turn on batteries, straightaway.
MULLEN:
But I think on the flippancy aside, I think Andy did mention earlier that the response in South Australia included actually bringing in mobile towers If you want a better word...
SPEAKER:
I realized that was catastrophic. But, you know, locally, we need to be guaranteed that if we have some sort of local event, I won't get a response from a phone operator saying, 'Oh, it might be back on in a week's time.'
MULLEN:
Well, seriously, again, I would...
SPEAKER:
(INAUDIBLE) person from overseas.
MULLEN:
I don't know how many actually events these guys would know. But I would say there is not a single week or even practically a day where something doesn't happen. Some building site, some backhoe operator cuts the cable, you know that stuff happens all the time, or you have rain or you have floods. And I think Telstra has actually got a very good track record of addressing that quickly. And putting more and more backups in place. Can we say we'll guarantee never to have it? No, we can't. But I think we're certainly doing our best. And we're doing a lot better than we did previously.
SPEAKER:
But getting back to customer service. The last situation I had, I had to make three phone calls to get a problem resolved. Problem resolved. Now, other customers are in the same situation. As I said, I can order something from Peter's of Kensington and I can get an airline ticket online, but dealing with your telecommunications is a different kettle of fish.
MULLEN:
Yes, you're right. And it should be digital. And it will be. That is absolutely where we are heading.
SPEAKER:
And if I gotta call for a person, I need to get somebody that will listen and will solve the problem straight away.
MULLEN:
Yes, and part of it, Of course, as we said earlier, as well is; it's not that the person's not listening. It's that we haven't necessarily given them the tools to fix the challenge. So if you can raise the problem with them, unless they've got the tools to address that situation for you, then all they can do is talk and that's obviously not going to solve the problem for you. But that's what we're going to work really hard on trying to do; is giving them the tools, especially digital tools, so that can be done online, as you said, like interaction with an airline or whatever. And you don't actually need to go through human at all. Thank you. Microphone three?
SPEAKER:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman I have a third question from William Bell of Eastwood.
MULLEN:
Good to know you are well, Mr. Bell
SPEAKER:
Yes, Good morning Chairman again, I'll bring up customer service. Why can't you have a tick list to say; this has got to be done to virtually start a product. Basically, I had a friend, George his name. A year gone in his cable, set up for him yet and it failed. The only reason fail is because he already asked Telstra; 'Have you given me everything I need to start broadband?' Yes. So I forgot to give him his email address. When I didn't give him his email address, that's as far as he went half an hour on the phone to try and get in it. And then he logged off And then he remembered, oh, wait a minute is a callback number. He called back, that number, finally got the email address and we got his broadband working that night. They didn't virtually give him everything. The simple thing is a checklist. Oh, yes, yes. Yes. Have we got it? All right. A lot of times. And then, only a couple of weeks ago, he said, I had a problem with the phone, Telstra said there's nothing wrong with the phone.
There was. And eventually they did fix it. But he's just an angry customer. He said, maybe when I renew my contract, I'll go with someone else. This is not good for Telstra. You know you hear it whenever you talked to people about Telstra. People tell you? 'Oh, yeah, I've had experience and I don't want to come back. I've known friends who have been in Optus. And I don't want to even mention that word in this thing. But yeah, they've been in Optus for many years because of the experience they had with Telstra. Now, the other thing I want to bring up is, 'why do the technicians still use old technology?' You keep talking about new technology. One of the technicians I saw 12 months ago had a dolphin torch, a great torch at the time. But it's had its days. Basically, in Bunnings, you cannot even buy that torch, they still sell the globes in case you haven't. But once those globes are gone, my mate says bindings won't even keep the globes, they'd gone to a LED torch. The LED torches last six to seven times longer for the battery.
Within a couple of batteries, you paid for new dolphin torch. But what I saw the technician having, are we've got old technology, and we've got not a LED torch but a globe torch which uses a heap of batteries. It's something that Telstra should be saying, 'we need to change our torches'. It costs money to start with, but it will save you money for the last six to seven times along with the battery. With the exchanges; go past the exchange fully lit up outside the exchange. Why can't they be centralized? And if they are lights, why can't they be LEDs. They use about so much less power and they last so much longer. Even our stop lights, that in the city These days are all LED based. They've been changing over. Why can't Telstra do the same?. Thank you.
MULLEN:
Mr. Bell, I think we get the message. And obviously, I really don't think I can comment on the specific type of torch that one specific technician uses somewhere. If we will check, I'll be very interested to know whether we've still got those in head office or not as well. That's all seriously, we understand there's an issue in customer service, and interaction with Telstra. It's a manual process in many cases. I would again not defensively say that the numbers of interactions, 365 data connections, million data connections a day and 45 million calls those things; there are a very large number of people are very happy with their interaction. Even one failure is too many. We are conscious of that. And we are going to do our very best, between board and management and we are going to spend a lot more money than we have on trying to address exactly those sort of frustrations that you have. You have our commitment on that. Thank you. Number one, please.
SPEAKER:
Thank you, Chairman. I have a question from Steve Gorgantis of Sydney. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm a shareholder and customer of Telstra. I'd like to focus on customer experience and service as well. I looked in the annual report, but I couldn't see any figures on the number of complaints you're getting on a year-by-year basis so I can compare where there's any improvement. Because been in the public service before. They also focused on cost-cutting, which you're doing as well. But when I asked them the question, 'What about the customer service?', they didn't really care because it was all about saving money. And I'd love to see something in the annual report so we can compare how you're going with customer service. Because if you lose the customers, you won't have a company. And every year people complain about the customer service. I know you're spending money on it. But I want to give you a couple of examples that I've had basically with the call centres; I have a landline. And basically, I have the same problem on an ongoing basis.
Whenever a Telstra technician comes into the street, they fix somebody else's line and my dial tone goes. So I ring up the call centre and I tell them, 'Listen, I've lost my dial tone.' This is the problem, the technicians have been in the street, Can you check it and get it fixed? Basically, and I go through this script because of their call centre staff. And they're wasting my time and I'm telling them on a mobile phone. This is a problem. Just check it. Don't tell me, 'I've got to pull out the plug and do all this. I've been through this problem before. I know what the problem is. After 15 minutes I said look, I'll check the line. Yes, sir. It's the line, basically. So they're not listening. When I said, 'Well, don't you have my history on your database?' Sorry. So I can only see your last complaint. So where's the problem, where you have the history of the person complaining? Now you have legacy systems, but years ago, I was told you changed from the old legacy system to a new system.
That didn't happen. OK. So that's one of the issues I've got with your customer service plus, talking to people from the call centre, they don't seem to understand one had an English problem as well, so I couldn't talk to them. The other thing was basically that with the buyback, you talked about it improves the earnings per share. But the problem is that you give out shares to the board and to yourself, and things like that. So the earnings per share have gone backward. As a shareholder, I'd rather see you return the capital as cash. Now you don't have banking credits, to payout increase dividends, but just give us cash because we want to keep the shares and get the dividends. But by giving out, buying back the shares, we miss out; basically, just give us the money back. And the last thing I have to say about this scamming. I have to say I'm pretty disappointed as a chairman of the company, you don't even know what your company can do for us. Because I have the same problem. I have people ringing me up every day, sometimes twice, eventually got tired.
I rang up your call centre. When I told them the problem, they said, 'Steve, what we can do for you, we will put a trace on your phone number plus the landline. If you give us details of the phone number ringing you, which you don't get it because it's anonymous, but give us the time and the dates. We bring this back, tell us the data and we will then block them. Eventually, after several calls and give them enough information, guess what? I don't get the calls anymore. That's the only positive thing I can say about Telstra, they blocked the calls. So that's my issue for today. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
MULLEN:
Thank you. So there were a number of components there, if I recall in your question. The first one was around, do we measure complaints and similar? We do. We measure very carefully, all of the complaints that come into the company. And you mentioned 'Can you see it in the annual report?'. I think the most visible example of the attention that we pay to that is in the remuneration and the STI that goes to senior management of the company; 40%, all the way down through the whole company, in fact, of their bonuses are based on the performance of the customer NPS scores that we achieved. This last year, we went backwards by four points. And as you will have seen as a result, nobody got any bonus at all for that. So we do measure it. And we do hold management accountable for that. On the buyback, I'm afraid this is always a difficult question. Because every shareholder is different. And every shareholder has a different view as to what would suit them best. It depends on your particular situation in life, It depends on your tax status, it depends on a whole lot of other things.
So holistically, we believe that a buyback is the best way to achieve this, because it allows even shareholders who choose not to participate in the buyback to benefit from improved earnings per share, because obviously, the number of shares on issue are reduced. On a scamming thing; I hope that was clear. I think there are things you could do, you can have numbers blocked, you can even have a completely silent number. Just saying that we can't wave a magic wand and stop what is a an increasingly appalling level barrage of this this sort of thing that afflict society generally today, but we are doing everything we can. So we're also working with authorities, but if you have a specific issue, you can raise it with us and we will do our best to help. Did that cover all of your questions?
SPEAKER:
I want transparency from the company, publishes their complaints. So we as the owners, because we're the owners, not you; How many complaints are getting by category so we can see whether you're improving or not. That's what we really want.
PENN:
Well, the complaints across the industry are published by the industry's ombudsman. And what you'll see is over time, our complaint numbers have been going down. They report the complaints as a number according to, I think is every 10,000 customers. There was a small increase in the number of complaints across the industry following the Switch to the multi-technology model for the rollout of the NBN, which occurred in December of last year. And it kicked up at that point, because of the new technology coming in. And there were some teething problems experienced by NBN and the industry responding to those. But overall, our complaint experience has been improving over time. And as the Chairman said, I mean, obviously, we're disappointed on every single occasion when we let a customer down. But at the same time, you know, we are working very hard. And we have improved a lot of aspects of our customer experience over the years. Now more than 50% of all interactions with customers are actually via digital mechanism online.
The 24/7 app is downloaded by 2.9 million customers, that gives you a lot of control and access over your mobile plans, checking how much data you've got on there. It's very individualized. So there are a number of things that we're doing. But as the chairman says, we continue to hold a very high bar for ourselves and, every time we let a customer down, it's a big disappointment. And we will continue to invest and do everything that we can to address that and improve that.
SPEAKER:
Well, I want to say one thing. All I can say is that with my landline. I just got to a stage where I just got to lodge a complaint, and I asked for compensation. It cost your money for them to reimburse my bill for three months. So that's what I do. And I talk to everybody else. Just complain and ask for compensation basically. So it's costing you money, for not listening to people to fix their problem. That's all I say. Thank you,
MULLEN:
Again, with any particular personal issue, we do have people here to try to address it for you, today. Not probably off the future, we will address it today for you. Microphone two please.
SPEAKER:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have Peter Starr from Sydney with another question. John, I can only suggest to Mum and Dad shareholders here and shareholders; if you haven't gone down to 400 George Street, go in there and have a look around and look at the experience in the service there. It wasn't always like that. But over time, it has improved. You go to any Telstra shop now, our presence is very clear and present. It wasn't like that but it is like that. Let me encourage you to go down there and have a look at the experience. Secondly, John, Andy might be best to answer this; is that, what's happening with the Galaxy Note Seven, just to bring you up to date. Samsung's about to recall the recall for those of you who are affected because it's still catching on fire even if you're charging the phone. A six-year-old girl this morning was burned; not here in Australia but on a record of the phone, so
PETER:
And what - is anybody from Samsung? Can updates and see what's going on because they are about to recall the recall, John, if you may (CROSSTALK). Thank you.
JOHN P MULLEN:
I think I can give you a short answer on that. We have temporarily paused shipping and replacement of Galaxy Note 7 smartphones while Samsung investigates the reported incidents, which have primarily been in the United States. We've asked them to provide us with an update on the investigations which they are doing as a matter of priority. And in the meantime, we're actually providing loan phones to anybody who asks for those who don't want the exchange program, a change of it, an alternative smartphone. So we are managing that very proactively.
PETER:
Yeah, just update to that is this morning in breaking if you haven't caught up with it, the the phones that they rereleased with the new batteries in them, same problem. If you haven't been aware, I'm making your way, so you might want to just take that on board. But yeah, they are about to recall those, so yeah.
JOHN P MULLEN:
Thank you, Peter. Well, we will try to stay on top of that to the best of our ability. Microphone three, please.
SPEAKER:
Thank you. Mr Chairman. I have a second question from John Hillman of Yagoona.
JOHN HILLMAN:
Thank you, Mr Chairman. This will be brief. It again relates to the major threat to our share price and to our dividends in the future. There's been discussion about the ACCC following my comment about writing to parliamentarians. I'm formally asking you, Mr Chairman, and I'll explain why I'm here, I'm formally asking you if Telstra will look at sending, for example, an electronic distribution to all of the shareholders that it possibly can giving details of how, specifically how we will be able to communicate our message to the ACCC. You know, I'm informally asking you so that it's quite clear on the record that you are reacting to a shareholder request. It's not an initiative or a lobbying process by yourselves, it's reacting to a specific request from shareholders. But I would say that that is the request, but I would also say that and think about mining and agriculture shareholders. Of course, it's the Foreign Investment Review Board, et cetera, et cetera. It's these bureaucratic processes.
I'm not having a shot of them, Adam. They're there and they listen to technical arguments. But do not forget that ultimately it does come down to the pressure that politicians and governments apply. And if a lot of opposition and a lot of government parliamentarians, Lower House and Senate, bring forward all of your messages to their party rooms and the respective minister then gathers that together and communicates that message, the ACCC is not, and we'll just talk about it as an entity, the management of the ACCC is not stupid. If they get a very powerful, overwhelming message and it can even be via a ministerial through your local members and then back to the ACCC, that will be the best thing we can do to protect our share value and our ongoing dividends from this overseas hijacking, this overseas raid, this overseas and it's been characterized in terms earlier criminality. I personally will reserve my judgment on that. But that's my formal request to you, Mr Chairman, that you provide us as shareholders with the specific details and an explanation as to why it's important, how it will affect our ongoing share price and dividends in various scenarios so that it's quite clear that we expect our board and the management of Telstra to help us, to react to our request to carry forward this process and make sure the penny drops with the ACCC and with our elected representatives.
Thank you.
JOHN P MULLEN:
OK, thank you for that precision. Again, I would reiterate that the company is doing everything it possibly can to ensure that everybody who will be affected by this has a voice and responds to the ACCC. We will leave no stone unturned. As regards individual shareholders, the process will be that the ACCC will issue an issues paper, which is, I think, due almost any day, and it's very shortly anyway. And that paper will request input from any concerned parties of which shareholders obviously would be one. So we would urge that when that comes out, the ACCC publish it on their website, that you then take the time to respond with your views. To your specific point about the company's role in that, let me talk with my colleagues in the coming days as to whether we can provide any more background information for shareholders that would help facilitate you forming a judgment and making that recommendation. We will take that on board. Thank you, microphone one?
SPEAKER:
Thank you, chairman. I have a question from Reginald Lobb of Stanwell Park.
REGINALD LOBB:
Thank you. You are a very patient chairman. I've attended a number of meetings and there's actually one Telstra shareholder who hasn't arrived, I'm quite surprised. It would have been a longer meeting. So, two very brief comments. We travelled within the last two months across the Nullarbor, both ways to Perth and home. We were advised that you needed Telstra Mobile. And accordingly, we bought a phone, added a Telstra SIM card, paid, we were alarmed to find that the gentleman who set it up for us here in Sydney, a helpful man, had set it up to receive data. Not for air use in emergencies across the Nullarbor. There was an emergency. But fortunately, that was when we were back in the city of Renmark. We have been to Telstra since, and they have adjusted that phone, but there was certainly an alarm that we did not have the communication device we needed. Before we went and in the course of planning the holiday, I had negotiated - we had negotiated a new bundle. When the bundle - we were told, yes, you'll get a new modem and other technology.
The modem arrived, and that's the old modem kept on working. Then suddenly, we had no internet. And tell Big Pond support, somewhere in somewhere overseas. And the question body is this. We have - it's a major issue. When you get down to a Telstra centre and they don't understand your question. They are not equipped to tell you and assist you. When I was asked the number of the modem, I was told, "That is not your modem." I had it in my hand. So there must be better customer service, advice. I got up to speak on this because this has been a question reiterated around this room today, hasn't it? Yes, get the service better. Thank you.
JOHN P MULLEN:
Thank you very much, Mr Lobb. We appreciate those comments. I am not sure that there was a great deal of value in going on reiterating one interaction after another. That's not in any way not taking them seriously. We do take them seriously. If you have a specific issue that you have not had fixed to your satisfaction, we have people here, as we've said before, to address that more generically. The board and your management team are acutely aware of these sorts of issues, and we are doing our very best to fix them. We are taking unprecedented levels of expenditure forward to do that over the coming years, and you have our absolute commitment that each time we stand up here before you at an AGM, we will be able to report improvement on addressing these sorts of issues. Now, I don't want to stifle any debate, but we are running very behind. Lunch is already served outside. I would suggest that we perhaps move on to the more formal part of the meeting now unless there are any other issues that you'd like to raise, any other questions that are not around the same topics as we've already expressed.
Yes please, microphone two.
SPEAKER:
Yes, sir. (INAUDIBLE) from Sydney would like to make a comment. Thank you. Thank you, Mr Chairman. I would just want to say that I have the most marvellous service from Telstra. I am not - I am very naive about it. I have the laptop that Mi-Fi - whatever it is, landline. And this green object appeared on one of my things and I took a photo of it and went down saying it wanted me to update it. I just took it down to Telstra shop. It was Android - I had an Android or whatever it was thing, and I should have updated it. But the people helped me and they... I don't understand the language of the IT or anything, but I take a photo. If it's an annoying phone call, I usually know who's ringing me and I let it ring at least ten times and hope it's one of those nuisance calls, it's dropped dead by then. But I am very happy with Telstra, and they put up with me and I terrorise them from Sydney to Ballarat. Shepparton included and they're good. Bye.
JOHN P MULLEN:
Thank you, Miss. I just again would say that we do have a very large amount of very happy customers. Obviously, you don't get customers ringing you up every day saying what a great experience you've just had. You expect that and you should rightly expect that. When you have a complaint is when you speak up. And then obviously, with the sheer volume of contacts that we have and users of our network, there will be a number of these complaints, but we're going to do our absolute best to try and drive them out of the system. Oh, maybe one more question. Is there anybody other than Mr Bell? Because we've already had a few questions from you Mr Bell, but I'm happy to speak to you afterwards for as long as you like. If there's any other questions. If there are none, Mr Bell, the last one and then we will move forward.
MR BELL:
Good afternoon, chairman. One other thing I want to bring up is safety. There are a lot of pits around that are unsafe in Telstra. I have complained several times of Telstra. Sometimes I've replaced it about 10 times. Not that I've booked it 10 times, but once I did find a pit that was being destroyed and they had bollards, they had everything. But when a 40-tonne fuel tanker goes over that pit, even concrete just snaps. I'm happy to say that you have virtually replaced that with a steel one and I haven't seen it broken since. But what happens when someone complains about a pit or anything in Telstra infrastructure? One of those towers, I don't know what you call it, I drove past it one day and it had fallen over. Two months later, I drove past again. It was still on the ground. If anyone rolls it up or it snaps the wires, it's probably over 100 or 200 phone people who are going to lose all their phones. It was even on social media around the Marrickville area that this thing had fallen over.
I'm sure someone had phoned to Telstra about it, but actually, then I took a photo and sent it to David Thodey. This time virtually two days later, it was fixed. Why does it take so long to fix safety and infrastructure faults in Telstra? And that's my last question. Thank you very much.
JOHN P MULLEN:
Thank you. Mr Bell, we have, I think, 7 million pits nationally and another 250,000 manholes. When they are reported as being faulty, we take action immediately. But on top of that, we actually have a remediation program. Andy, I think that you are rolling out across the nation to make sure that we get to all of those pits on a regular basis. But it's a lot of pits. And do things happen? Yes, they do occasionally, but we take it very seriously because obviously, you can severely injure somebody if they fall into a pit or whatever. So we have a very robust occupational health and safety function within the company. These issues are reported to the board at every board meeting, and we actually go through every single incident that's affected the company or members of the public during that previous period. We go through those as a board. We take it seriously. Alright, I think that brings us to the end of that section. We've finalized our discussion there. So I would not like to turn to Item 3A on today's agenda, which is to consider the election of Mr Craig Dunn.
You heard from Craig at the start of today's meeting and his details are set out in the Notice of Meeting. Craig is a highly regarded business leader with more than 20 years of experience in financial services and pan-Asian business activities, including six years as Chief Executive Officer of AMP Ltd. He has significant expertise and experience in financial technology, including through his role as chairman of independent not-for-profit financial technology hub Stone and Chalk, and through providing strategic advice for government and major companies. He joined the board in April 2016 and has been a member of our Audit and Risk Committee since that time. The board, obviously than Craig himself, unanimously recommends his election. So I'll not take any questions you may have regarding Craig's election. I take that there are no questions. We will now vote on this item. The proxy and direct voting position has been shown on the slide behind me. As indicated in the Notice of Meeting, I intend to vote all available proxies on this item in favour of Craig's election.
So please fill out your voting cards for Item 3A. I'll now turn to Item 3B, which is to consider the election of Jane Hemstritch. You've also heard from Jane at the start of today's meeting, and her details are set out in the Notice of Meeting. Jane joined the board in August this year and has also been a member of our remuneration committee since then. She's a very experienced company director and has extensive senior executive experience in information technology, communications, change management, and accounting. She also has broad experience across financial services, telecommunications, government, energy and manufacturing sectors, and in business expansion in Asia. Again, the board, other than Jane herself, unanimously recommends her elections. So I will not take any questions that you may have in relation to Jane's election. I take that as there being no questions, so we will now vote on this item as well. The proxy and direct voting position have been shown on the slide behind me.
And as indicated in the Notice of Meeting, I intend to vote all available proxies on this item in favour of Jane's election. So please fill out your voting cards for Item 3B. I now turn to Item 3C, which is to consider the re-election of Nora Scheinkestel. You've also heard from Nora at the start of today's meeting, and her details are set out in the Notice of Meeting. Nora has very significant experience as a non-executive director, having served as Chairman and director for a range of companies across a wide variety of industry sectors. Her background includes experience as a senior banking executive and international project financing. She consults for government, corporate and institutional clients in areas such as corporate governance, strategy and finance. And Nora has been a very valuable member of our board since 2010 and also has a very important role as chairman of the Audit and Risk Committee. Again, the board, other than Nora herself, unanimously recommends her re-election.
I will now take any questions you may have on Nora's re-election. We do have one question. Microphone two. Thank you, John. Nora, I've just been asked to say that all the votes that I'm holding will be going to you. We're very grateful that today you've done an excellent job and we hope you continue to look after us and serve us well. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr Starr. So thank you for the questions. We've now finalized our discussion of this item as well, and the proxy and direct voting position have been shown on the slide behind me. As indicated in the Notice of Meeting, I intend to vote all available proxies on this item in favour of Nora's reelection. So please fill out your voting cards for Item 3C. I now turn to Item Four on today's agenda, which is to consider the grant of performance rights to the CEO, Andrew Penn, under Telstra's fiscal year 17 long-term incentive plan, as outlined on the screen behind me. Details of the proposed grant are set out in the explanatory notes to the Notice of Meeting.
But in summary, if shareholder approval is obtained, each performance right will entitle Andy to one fully paid ordinary Telstra share at the end of the three year performance period, subject to the satisfaction of two separate performance measures. And those two measures are first, Telstra's relative total shareholder return performance, and secondly, our free cash flow return on investment performance. Half of the performance rights are subject to the RTSR measure, and the other half are subject to the free cash flow ROI measure. As explained in the Notice of Meeting, the targets set for the free cash flow ROI measure do not yet take into account two things. Firstly, the investments and the resulting returns from the three-year strategic investment program that we have just announced as the phasing of that program has not yet been finalized and was not done so at the time this meeting was convened. The program is expected to increase our CAPEX to sales ratio in each year of the FY17 to FY19 performance period to approximately 18%.
As details of the investment program and the resulting benefits are progressively confirmed during the period, these targets will be adjusted against the basis of the pre-existing plans that did not reflect that program at the time. Secondly, the impacts of certain new accounting standards applicable in future reporting periods, namely mainly new revenue recognition and lease accounting rules, have also not been included. Importantly though, although necessarily Andy's initial targets were set based upon our pre-existing plans, I would like to reiterate that as soon as the new investment plans are finalized, then the board will fully take these into account and hold him accountable when determining the outcome for the free cash flow ROI measure. All amendments to performance will be measured against the planned outcome of those investments. Both will then also consider the impact of new accounting standards and will exercise its discretion to ensure that the overall vesting outcomes are appropriate.
The number of performance rights, being 853,210, represents the maximum potential number of shares that may be earned by the CEO under the plan. The actual number of shares you may receive in 2019 will then be determined based on Telstra's performance over the three-year period. If any of those performance rights vests, the shares earned will be subject to a further one-year service condition and trading restriction. The board, other than Andrew Penn himself, considers the grant of performance rights to the CEO to be appropriate in all the circumstances and recommends shareholders vote in favour of Item Four. I will now take any questions you may have on this item. Microphone two. Mr Chairman, I intend to vote in favour of the motion, but I wanted to make a comment on the share price. Mr Penn was very lucky that the
SPEAKER 1:
The share price. I'm sorry, the volume weighted average of the share price for the five days was $545. It's come way down since then. Being a substantial holder of Telstra shares, I was concerned. I've been retired for over 20 years and I've held Telstra shares most of that time. It seems to me that, and I was going to mention this before, but I didn't think, it was appropriate. But the share price rises and falls according to the whims of lots and lots of people. Not just the buyers and sellers, but also the advisers. The big firms who buy and sell shares. And the advice I keep getting from licensed dealer in securities is that Telstra has not got a clear plan forward. They're not saying what they're going to do. And this means that because of this, the share price is being marked down. Now, I'm told I should sell the Telstra shares and buy TPG, which I'm not going to do. But it's just interesting to hear that coming from some of my fellow analysts. So, I just like to say you're doing a great job, but we really do need to do a little bit more of releasing information about what we're going to do in the future to enhance our share value.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
MR. CHAIRMAN:
Thank you. And that broader discussion on the share price was really, I think, more relevant to the first discussions we've had. But in the context of Andy's remuneration, clearly, one of the main reasons why these rights or this this opportunities offered in the form of shares, is to perfectly align and his interests with your interest as a shareholder. So, if it doesn't go well for you, it doesn't go well for any. So, we have a collective interest in seeing that share price go up. Thank you. Any other from microphone one.
SPEAKER 2:
Thank you, chairman, I have a question from Charles Weekes, from (UNKNOWN).
CHARLES WEEKES:
Hello. I'm a long time shareholder, bought at $7.40. Now $5. That is 30% down. Now, I'm also concerned, your point about the increase. Your dividend is 81.5 over the year. I've done a few numbers going on the CPI index. There's $7.40. It comes out now at $11.72. The share price is less than half on the CPI. At 2005, it had a 40% dividend. Then it got down to 28 regularly, in 2006. But they didn't do the CPI index. There should be 36.8 cents. We're well behind the CPI. My question is the short term and long term incentives and the executive salaries, how do they compare to the CPI? Seeing how income has gone down. Wondering how the CPI, I mean, the executives and their incentives have gone down or up compared to the CPI? Thank you.
MR. CHAIRMAN:
Thank you for your question, Mr. Weekes. If you as a shareholder invested in each of the three tranches of sale down by the government over the 1997, 1999 and 2006 tranches, if you'd invest in each one, you would have more than doubled your investment given today's share price. And the respective increases were over 200% of the first 32, for the second, and 120 odd for the third. I don't think, this is probably, the place or the issue in which to debate the share price at great length. But clearly, we hear what you say. The incentive schemes in this company have directly targeted their performance and measuring executives, including Andy, on performance. And you can see, it's not a question of relating it to CPI in a particular year. You can see if performance is good, management will do well. If performance is bad, they won't do well. And you will see that in this year's STI, where management only achieved about 43% of their entitlement. Including zero payout on income, and zero on the customer service measurement.
Because of exactly those concerns. So, we try very hard as a board to make sure that we are continually aligned between shareholder and management. And if management do well, that's because shareholders have done well, not vice versa.
CHARLES WEEKES:
Failed.
MR. CHAIRMAN:
Well, I hear what you say, but I would have to beg to disagree. We try extremely hard and we take very seriously the alignment of executive compensation with shareholder interests. That's our job. OK, I don't think we have any further... No, we do.
SPEAKER 2:
Mr. Chairman, I have Levi Noel, from Wollongong.
MR. CHAIRMAN:
OK, thank you.
LEVI NOEL:
Mr. Chairman, my question relates to the long term incentive scheme. You did mention there, that the performance of the return, if you like, of the chief executive needs to be directly related to the shareholders, so that, if he gains, we gain. Now, because 50% of the LTI entitlement is based on relative total shareholder return. Now, that does not align with the shareholders. Relative just means that he has to perform a little bit better than the comparator group, which I'm sure you're familiar with the group that they compared to. Now, if share price goes down and dividends might just stay the same or it may go down. Well, obviously as the shareholders we lose. But the executive can still get theirs, if they perform relatively good compared to the rest of the ASX shares that you're compared to. So, for that reason, these things are not aligned. I think, it was absolute TSR years. If you're going to use relative TSR, well, then there should be options. In those situations, you'd be aligned directly with us, the shareholders.
So, that's my first complaint about it. The second question is, (INAUDIBLE). They are long term incentive. You can earn a maximum of 200% of this fixed annual remuneration. So, it's fixed annual remuneration is 2.3 million. So, that's quite another, nearly, 5 million. Brits are up to 7 million. The other thing is, as far as the short term, I haven't got that information here, but what's the short term incentive? Is that 200% of (INAUDIBLE), as well or not. Why I'm asking this is because I'd like to see the long term incentive be much better than the short term. Because if its long term, it's better for the company. Better probably, for us shareholders, and very definitely better for the employees. So, the company performs well. These executives, they come, they go. But employees have to be with the company, maybe 30 or 40 years. So, that's my second question. How does the long term incentive compare to the short term? Are they 50 50 or is the short term 50%?
MR. CHAIRMAN:
Thank you very much, Mr. Noel. So, on your first question about the use of relative TSR as opposed to straight TSR, I'm afraid there's no right or wrong answer in this debate. Many companies do it different ways. The measurement that we use is a pretty standard industry measure. The reason for that is, so, some of the earlier debate about other influences on share price that may be completely outside the company or management's control. If the whole index is rising or falling, you actually, want your company to do better than the others. And we therefore use a relative measure because whether the share price has risen or fallen, we want to reward management for doing better than their peers. Not for just riding that wave, which is what would happen if you used absolutely TSR. So, we're comfortable that that is the best measure.
LEVI NOEL:
But would you not accept that our interests are not aligned using this relative to yourself? Because state executives can get their incentives, even though the shareholders, we lost money.
MR. CHAIRMAN:
But if the executive does get shares in that situation, that means that the executive has been part of a team has driven an above average performance for your shares in that period of time. So, they have done far better than the competitor group. I think, that is actually a more aligned structure than just going on the absolute. And also point to remind everybody, that the the reward is not cash, it is shares so. So, from that point on, the executives are totally aligned with you as a shareholder.
LEVI NOEL:
They would be, if there were options for them to actually pay something for them. Anyway, I'm not going to disagree with you. I accept what you're saying. But what about the other in the short term and long term?
MR. CHAIRMAN:
Well, that's based on a similar structure of up to 200.
LEVI NOEL:
Right? Yeah. So, why not have the long term system much higher to encourage, you know, long term interests. So that, the long term benefits the company, as well?
MR. CHAIRMAN:
Well, again, I don't think, there's a right or wrong here, but judgment is that you want an evenly balanced level of effort from management on fixing today's problems, as well as, long term problems. You don't want things done in the company today that are at the expense of the long term, just to get a better result, today. But equally, we don't want to forsake today for the long term, which is why we have both the STI and the LTI structure.
LEVI NOEL:
And why not extend the three year to four year or five year for the long term incentive, rather than just three years? That's pretty short term.
MR. CHAIRMAN:
Well, it is four, because there's an additional year at the end before the executives can actually, trade in those shifts. Again, we think four is about the right balance.
LEVI NOEL:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
MR. CHAIRMAN:
Thank you. There are no further questions on this matter. We will now vote on the item. The proxy and direct voting position has been shown on the slide behind me. As indicated in the notice of meeting, I intend to vote all available proxies in favour of the grant of performance rights to the CEO. So, please fill out your voting cards for item four. I will not turn to item five on today's agenda, which is to consider Telstra's remuneration report for the year ended 30th of June, 2016, as outlined on the screen behind me. Before inviting questions from the floor, I would like to provide some introductory comments about this year's remuneration report, and our remuneration outcomes for fiscal year 16. Our aim in preparing the remuneration report is to enable you, as shareholders and interested stakeholders, to understand the links between remuneration, company strategy and Telstra's performance. And the framework that we have in place is to provide effective governance over remuneration at Telstra.
The overall structure and philosophy of our approach, as well as, the structure of the remuneration report itself, remain consistent throughout the 2016 financial year. This remuneration philosophy is based on linking financial rewards directly to employee contributions and company performance As you've heard this morning, overall, in 2016, Telstra delivered solid results for shareholders. However, we did not make enough progress on improving customer experience. The remuneration outcomes for the 2016 financial year, therefore, reflect this underperformance. And as a result, no incentive payments were made to senior management in respect of customer service performance. This meant that senior executives received an average of 40.5 of the maximum opportunity open to them, under the fiscal year, 16 STI plan. Separately, 53% of the maximum opportunity vested for senior executives under the fiscal year 14 LTI plan. In response to feedback that we received in the lead up to last year's meeting, we've also provided more information about how the board determined the outcome under the cash flow performance measure of the fiscal year 14 LTI plan, when we prepared this year's report.
The board determines remuneration outcomes under both the STI and LTI plans, to ensure there are no windfall gains or losses due to the timing of the NBN rollout. And by adjusting reported results for non-recurring items such as spectrum purchases and unplanned material acquisitions and divestments, as well as, any other significant unplanned business development or material, regulatory or legislative change where relevant. So, as I summarise, the key outcomes under RTI and LTI plans this year, therefore, I will highlight what the board considered to include or exclude when it determined these outcomes. For the FY16 short term incentive, STI, all senior executives participated in the same STI plan, with one exception of the group executive Telstra Wholesale, who for regulatory reasons, participated in the standalone plan. The performance measures of the STI plan were free cash-flow, a total income of strategic customer advocacy, net promoter score or NPS, and individual performance objectives.
The board selected these performance measures as it believes they are a critical link between achieving the outcomes of our business strategy and increasing shareholder value. Senior executives received an average of 40.5 of the maximum opportunity available, based on the assessment of financial, customer advocacy, and individual performance. We did not achieve a total income or NPS gateways. And as a result, as I said, no payment was made for these components. The board included the impairment of (UNKNOWN) business as this was a negative for the company. And the impact was therefore, included in cementing the final outcome to management's detriment. Conversely, the board included the profit on sale of Autohome in determining the final outcome, as this was a tremendous success for the company and management benefitted accordingly. For the long term incentive, or LTI, the performance period for the fiscal year 14 LTI plan concluded on the 30th of June, 2016. The outcome of that was at 53% of the maximum opportunity vested, as restricted shares.
Performance rights form the basis of the reward, under the LTI plan, or for any performance right to vest as restricted shares, a minimum threshold performance against the relevant measure must be satisfied. And the fiscal year 14 LTI plan had two separate performance measures. Relative total shareholder return, or RTSR, as, we've just been discussing. And free-cash flow return on investment or free cash-flow ROI. Half of the performance rights were subject to each of these two separate measures. The result of the two planned measures, where the RTSR ranked at the 50 second percentile of the comparator group, and Telstra achieved a free cash-flow ROI outcome of 15.9% , which exceeded the target of 15.1% that was set for the fiscal year 14 LTI plan. The board therefore, determined that the free cash-flow ROI outcome of the fiscal year 14 LTI plan is as described in our remuneration report. The most significant items that affected the outcome were the exclusion of the cash proceeds from the Autohome divestment, over the profit on sale that was included.
This had the effect of reducing the outcome for management. The exclusion of spectrum purchases and the purchase price and trading cash flows of acquisitions, for example, while the Packnett and Video Plaza. And lastly, the divestments, the exclusion of sale prices, but trading cash flows were included as if they continued to contribute to our results. These were mainly CSL and the census advertising and directories business. The board also took into account certain regulatory decisions in the NBN transaction, but these aspects did not have a significant impact on the outcome. Overall, the free cash-flow ROI outcome reduced from 16.% to 15.9%, against a target of 15.1%. And the fiscal year 14 LTI plan vesting outcome decreased from 59.25% to 53%. Finally, I would remind shareholders that the shares allocated to executives under this plan are subject to a further one year restriction period that ends on the 30th of June, 2017. In closing, I would just like to highlight a couple of other important aspects about remuneration that Telstra.
Which are outlined in the report. Firstly, there have been no changes to senior executive remuneration during the 2016 financial year, except at the time of promotion to a senior executive role. There have also been no changes to non-executive director or committee fees. Secondly, in the fiscal year 16 STI plan, strategic NPS was the sole metric for the customer measure. Strategic NPS is the overall impression of Telstra as a company. And that was chosen as it helps us understand how our customers feel about Telstra, and whether they would recommend us to others. In fiscal year 17, though, we also want to increase the focus on how our customers feel about their direct interactions with us on a daily basis. I think, it's very relevant to a lot of the discussion that we've had, today. So, to do this, we're introducing an additional metric known as the Service Experience Index, or SEI. This is a measure of the experience that our customers receive each time they actually, use us or in contact with us to fix a problem.
We already measure those experiences as part of our NPS program, so, that is not hard to calculate. So, the overall quantum of the customer metric will remain unchanged. But going forward, the strategic strategic NPS and the new SEI metrics will now contribute how the customer measure each. So, we're going to measure how to customers think of Telstra as a whole and how to customers rate their individual experiences and actions with the company. Other than this change to the customer measure, we do not anticipate any other changes in our approach to senior executive remuneration in fiscal year 17. In particular, for fiscal year 17, there will be no fixed remuneration increases and no changes to the STI and the LTI opportunities as a percentage of fixed remuneration for the senior executives, including the chief executive. The board recommends that shareholders vote in favour of the adoption of the remuneration report. And at this point I would now invite questions from any shareholder who wishes to raise anything.
OK, I take it that there are no questions. So, we've not finalized discussion of this item, and the proxy indirect voting position on this item is being shown on the slide behind me. As indicated in the notice of meeting, I intend to vote all available proxies on this item in favour of the adoption of the remuneration report. So, please now fill out your voting cards for Item five. Shareholders, as the meeting is about to conclude, if you have any other questions you'd like to ask about your company that are relevant to shareholders as a whole, please move to a microphone, now. Microphone three. Mr Bell.
MR. BELL:
One quick question. Why are we still on paper and most companies got going in shares too, they have the electronic one? Can the board think of doing the electronic one thing in the future? Thank you.
MR. CHAIRMAN:
Yes, we are. And we will work on that during this forthcoming year. Thank you. Shareholders that concludes our discussion of all items on today's agenda. If you haven't already done so, please complete your voting card and place it in one of the ballot boxes, which the tenants are carrying throughout the room, or in one of the ballot boxes near the exits. The poll will remain open for a further 15 minutes to enable shareholders to cast their votes, and the results of the poll will be available later today and can be obtained by visiting the ASX ,or our own website. All items of business have now been considered, and I therefore declare the meeting closed, subject to finalization of the poll. Thanks to all of you also who viewed the AGM online. Thank you very much for your attendance today, shareholders. And I now invite you to join us for lunch or what's left of it in the foyer area. Thank you.
The 2015 AGM of Telstra Corporation Limited was held from 9.30am (Melbourne time) on Tuesday 13 October 2015 at the Savoy Ballroom, Melbourne Grand Hyatt, 123 Collins Street, Melbourne VIC.
Recording of the 2015 AGM held on Tuesday 13 October 2015 at the Melbourne Grand Hyatt.
SPEAKER:
Telstra is creating a brilliant, connected future for everyone. Our strategy is focused on improving customer advocacy, driving value from our core business and building pathways to future growth. Customers are our highest priority. We want to keep improving the way we interact with them. We are committed to network leadership. And we're building new growth businesses. We are becoming a world-class technology company that empowers people to connect in Australia and around the world. Telstra has delivered again for shareholders. We grew revenues. Added fixed and mobile customer services. Continued to invest in our network and increased our dividends for shareholders. Our challenge now, to create pathways to the future, building world-class capabilities to make a brilliant connected future come alive.
CATHERINE LIVINGSTONE:
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Catherine Livingstone and I am the chairman of your company. On behalf of my fellow directors, I'm pleased to welcome you to Telstra's 2015 Annual General Meeting and also to extend a very warm welcome to the many shareholders joining us today online. I would like to begin by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land on which we meet, the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nation and pay my respects to their elders past and present. We have a quorum and I declare the meeting open. A notice of meeting has been distributed, setting out the business and resolutions to be considered at this meeting, and I will take the notice as read. There are five items of business on today's agenda presentations by myself and your chief executive officer, Andrew Penn. Discussion of our 2015 financial statements and reports. Consideration of the election and the re-election of directors. Consideration of the proposed grant of performance rights to the CEO and consideration of the remuneration report.
Voting on Item three to five will be conducted by a poll and that poll is now open. If you do need to leave the meeting early, you can vote by completing your voting card and placing it in one of the many ballot boxes near the exits. I would now like to introduce Telstra's auditors. Yeah. Joining us today from EY is Steve Ferguson, and he's available to answer any questions you may have on the conduct of the audit, or on the auditor's report. Joining me on stage are, Andrew Penn, your Chief Executive Officer, Damian Coleman, company secretary, and Warrick Bray, your chief financial officer, your board, of course, and Trae Vassallo, who has been nominated by the Board for election at today's meeting. I will shortly invite the director standing for election to introduce themselves individually. But first, I would like to acknowledge directors Geoffrey Cousins and John Zeglis. Mr Cousins and Mr Zeglis have announced their intention to retire from the board at the conclusion of today's meeting.
Both joined Telstra in 2006 and each has completed three terms or nine years on the board. Mr Cousins and Mr Zeglis have played a significant roles in helping to oversee the evolution of Telstra through a period of substantial change in the telecommunications industry, and we thank them for their contribution. I would now like to invite Mr Cousins and Mr Zeglis to address the meeting.
GEOFFREY COUSINS:
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you very much, chairman, for those words. I'm Geoff Cousins. You know, this company today is an entirely different company, to the one I joined nine years ago. Firstly, it's a better company. It's better in almost every respect. Its relationship with its customers is better and they respond to that. Its relationship with the government is better, and the government has responded to that. And indeed it's return to shareholders is better, and I trust you all respond very favourably to that. But it's not only a better company, it's a different company. When I joined it, it was an old style telco business, earning most of its revenue from voice traffic. Today, it's well on its way to being a new technology company with new services, new systems, new thinking and some new geography as well. It's been a remarkable transformation and one of the great experiences of my corporate life to play just a small part in it. And you, as shareholders, have elected me three times over that period.
I'm very grateful for that. Thanks for having me.
JOHN ZEGLIS:
Good morning. I am the aforementioned John Zeglis. I am an American and the last nine times I have stood before you I have used these few moments to suggest why I belong on your board of directors. Not standing for re-election this time, I want to say thank you for having me for those nine years. Two points, really. First Country. Australia is a fabulous country. Sure, I track your political debates. I wring my hands with you over economic challenges. But maybe it's my distance and that little perspective that makes me want to cry out. You have an awesome country and you have created a brilliant society within it. And that leads me to the second point, company. A country that good deserves a great company, delivering up life, affecting innovation and technology. Over and over and over again. And as Geoffrey just said, you have that company, Telstra, this board, that management team, tens of thousands of employees out where you live, delivering the service. Nobody in the world does it better.
So that's it. Country. Company, thank you so much for letting me be even the tiniest part of both these last nine years. I'll be forever grateful.
CATHERINE LIVINGSTONE:
Well, Jeff and John, again, on behalf of the board and shareholders, thank you both for your commitment to Telstra over the last nine years. I'd now like to invite the directors who are standing for election to introduce themselves. I we'll start with Russell.
RUSSELL HIGGINS:
Thank you, chairman. My name is Russell Higgins and I've been a member of the Telstra board since 2009, and I serve on the Audit and risk committee as well. And as the chairman mentioned, I'm standing for re-election at this AGM. I bring a broad range of skills to the Telstra board gained from more than 20 years as a director of listed companies, private companies, government, business enterprises and international organisations, and from an executive career, including as a CEO in the Australian government and at the OECD in Paris. Today, our lives, our economy and our society are being transformed by rapid technological change, and Telstra operates at the heart of that change. I look forward to using my skills and experience to help guide Telstra in this rapidly evolving world. Thank you.
MARGARET SEALE:
Good morning, everybody, my name is Maggie Seale, and I'm standing for re-election today. I joined your board in May 2012 and I'm also a member of the Audit and Risk Committee. I'm a professional company director with experience in Australia and internationally, with particular focus on understanding consumer markets, customer engagement, brand management, strategic and business development, media and content, and transition to new digital business models. With an extensive background leading companies in the publishing sector at this time in Telstra's development, I particularly bring a deep understanding of an industry in transformation. As publishing continues to move from print to digital, so does Telstra move from primarily an engineering company and infrastructure company to a technology and consumer based organisation? I bring a perspective to the board from that background, which I hope will contribute to Telstra's terrific development. Thank you very much.
STEVEN VAMOS:
Good morning, everyone, I'm Steve Vamos. I've been a director on your board since September 2009. I also serve on the board remuneration nomination committees and I'm standing for re-election today. It's been a great privilege to participate in Telstra's journey and transformation over the past six years. And during that time, it's become clear that the pace of change in technology in our industry continues to accelerate, and that leading and adapting to change is now a critical capability for all businesses large and small. This area is of particular interest to me, given over 30 years in information technology industry, but also now as a non-executive director, business advisor and as an investor in startups. I'd be very proud if re-elected to continue to serve on the Telstra board. Thank you.
TRAE VASSALLO:
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Trae Vassallo, and I'm honoured to be nominated by the board and to stand for election today. I'm a US based technology executive investor and strategic adviser. I was previously a general partner at the California venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers. I bring to Telstra 20 years of experience working in the technology sector, which is a source of so much of the rapid change and innovation that is shaping the future of Telstra's business, as well as the opportunities and challenges that lie ahead. My career has included designing and developing groundbreaking products for companies like Palm and Dell, and investing in successful technology companies like Nest Labs, Opower and Dropcam. I was also a co-founder of an early stage tech business called Good Technology, and I currently invest in emerging early stage technology companies and serve on their boards, as well as advisory boards in the US. If elected today, I look forward to contributing my expertise and global perspective as Telstra continues to pursue its strategy for future growth.
Thank you.
CATHERINE LIVINGSTONE:
So I'd like to take this opportunity to thank all of my fellow directors for their contribution and support during the past year. Now turning to leadership changes shareholders. You would be aware that David Thodey retired in May as Telstra's chief executive officer. In his six years as CEO, David took Telstra from what was a very challenging position to now one of strength. His determination to instil a culture deep culture of customer advocacy is a powerful legacy. While he is unable to be with us this morning, I would like to take this opportunity to thank David for his enormous contribution to Telstra. The board's appointment of Andrew Penn as CEO reflects a commitment to continuing our current strategic direction. In his previous Telstra role as CFO, Mr Penn was integral to developing this strategy. He is also a seasoned executive in global markets and has a proven ability to lead organisations through significant transition and growth. I will talk further about Telstra's growth agenda shortly, but first I would like to make some brief remarks about this year's financial performance.
2015 was a year of ongoing momentum for your company. A year in which it again met its commitments. It was a year that demonstrated the value being created for shareholders through a continued focus on improving customer advocacy, driving value from the core business and building new growth businesses. In terms of our results, this was our first full financial year without the CSL Hong Kong mobile business, which was sold in May 2014. As a consequence, our reported profit numbers appear lower on a comparative basis. On a guidance basis, however, where we exclude the CSL operating results from last year and the profit from its sale, our total income was up 6.6% and EBITDA was up 4.5%. Shareholders there has been much commentary recently on whether big business pays its share of tax. I can report that in the 2015 financial year, Telstra paid $1.7 billion in Australian income tax, and this represents approximately 2.5% of the total Australian company tax revenue. On the back of our results, Telstra also continued to create shareholder value through a number of capital and portfolio management activities.
The board announced a further increase in the final dividend to 15.5 cents per share, fully franked. This brings the total dividend for the 2015 financial year to 30.5 cents per share. When combined with the off market share buyback, $4.7 billion was returned to shareholders in the year. In addition, shareholders can now also elect to participate in our Dividend Reinvestment Plan, which we reintroduced in response to shareholder feedback last year. More than 100,000 shareholders, representing 6% of issued capital, chose to participate in the DRP for this recent dividend. All shares required to fulfil the DRP were purchased on market, and no brokerage or other transaction costs were payable by shareholders. I'd now like to turn to the National Broadband Network. The revised definitive agreements we reached with NBN Co and the federal government to support a multi technology model for the NBN have now come into effect. In those areas where NBN Co has built its fibre to the premises network, the migration of eligible services is taking place and Telstra's copper and HFC network is being disconnected.
Last month, we started to progressively transfer to NBN Co, part of Telstra's copper network in readiness for the launch of its fibre to the node products. This activity represents a fundamental structural change both in our industry and in the shape of Telstra's business. Going forward as an access seeker as opposed to the network owner and operator. Telstra is determined to become Australia's leading provider of consumer and business services on the NBN network. Income from the NBN definitive agreements is also flowing through, with related income of at $811 million this year, up 27% on the year before. This is, of course, offset to some extent by the one off migration costs associated with connecting customers to the NBN. And then as we go forward, we we'll need to pay network access charges to NBN Co in relation to these customer connections. And as at June the 30th, we had 211,000 NBN connected customers. Separate from the NBN definitive agreements, Telstra also receives additional income by completing work for NBN Co, such as planning and design services.
I'd now like to make some broader comments about the accelerating rate of technology innovation and describe how those rapid changes are influencing Telstra's future shape and direction. As you heard from Directors', technologies are evolving rapidly and the level of connectivity is growing exponentially as broadband and wireless technologies become more embedded in our lives and businesses than ever before. Three key drivers underpin much of the change. Firstly, the rapid growth of video on connected devices. Secondly, the growth of the Internet of Things. And finally, the incredible power of cloud computing. Firstly, to video globally, mobile data traffic is is expected to increase tenfold over the next five years, and three quarters of that growth will be VIDEO. As the popularity of services like IPTV and subscription video on demand grows. On Telstra's networks, video has already grown to over half of the traffic volumes on our fixed network and is approaching half on our mobile network.
The second major driver of change is the rapid growth of the Internet of Things, increasingly, mobile internet connections are embedded in electronics, buildings, vehicles and other machinery to create a vast internet of things. Already, there are more connected things in the world than there are connected people. And by 2030, it's expected that as many as 50 billion devices will be connected to the internet. So, for example, the in-ground sensors in parking spaces detect when the permitted time limit has expired and electronically notify the nearest parking officer. (LAUGHTER) Not an advantage, you might think. The third driver of change is the rapid growth of cloud computing. Cloud is where computing resources are moved off premises, typically to a data centre and managed by service provider. Clouds power and popularity comes from it's affordable, scalable IT infrastructure for customers ranging from multinational corporations to a single person wanting to back up their photographs taken on a smartphone.
Each of these technologies is driving change at a global scale. Each is also influencing the future shape and direction of Telstra as we build pathways to the future through our investment in growth businesses and an enhanced focus on innovation. So I'd like to comment in particular on three areas of investment. So Video, Cloud and Health. In video, Telstra has invested in acquisitions in Silicon Valley, Stockholm and London to build an intelligent video platform in our Ooyala business. Ooyala's video capabilities extend to video production, broadcast planning, analytics and ad insertion. And it now has more than 550 customers worldwide, including leading broadcasters and media companies. Later this month, we will also launch Telstra TV, which will offer customers access to leading subscription video on demand products alongside a selection of free to air and catch up TV services, and the latest releases from Big Pond movies. In Cloud, we have significantly expanded our capabilities through the acquisition of Packnett earlier this year.
Packnett substantially increases the reach and scale of our operations in Asia by enhancing our ability to offer connectivity, managed services and data centre services to carriers, multinational corporations and governments in the region. So combining Packnett extensive network of submarine fibre optic cables and data centres with ours means Telstra now carries about one third of all lit data capacity in the Asia Pacific region. Our cloud business has grown 20 to 30 per cent per annum over the last three years and revenues in our network applications and services business, which includes cloud with $2.4 billion this year, up from $1 billion five years ago. Finally, in health, we're working to become Australia's leading provider of integrated e-health solutions. Telstra Health was formally launched as a standalone business unit in October 2014 and now offers connected solutions in primary aged and residential care hospitals, radiology, pharmacy, health analytics and tele medicine. So in summary, through applying new technologies and particularly connected technologies, the shape of Telstra is changing as we position the company for long term success in a dynamic, competitive and global industry.
Moving now to the role of Telstra and the role it plays in the community, we think it's important that all Australians, irrespective of their age, income, ability or location, are able to enjoy the many benefits connectivity brings. And that is why we continue to support a range of national programs that address important social issues, including digital inclusion, cyber safety and social disadvantage. The total benefit we provided this financial year in social and community contributions, including programs to support over one million vulnerable customers was $214 million. And this included six million from the Telstra Foundation, which is supporting a range of programs, including Code Club Australia, which helps young people learn computer coding, which is a critical skill in the digital age. In the important area of reconciliation, Telstra this year also launched a Reconciliation Action Plan, which aims to double the number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employees at Telstra over the next three years, significantly expand telehealth network in remote areas and introduce new programs in cyber security and digital literacy.
We've also made a significant commitment to infrastructure with a co-investment with the Northern Territory government of $30 million over three years to fund new mobile services and broadband in remote communities. And finally, our ongoing focus on the environment also saw our total carbon emissions decreased by 1.3% this year. That's decrease in total carbon emissions, despite data loads on our network increasing by 36%. So in closing, I'd like to take this opportunity to thank Mr Penn and his senior executives and the entire Telstra team for their efforts in delivering the many achievements I've described to you this morning. Looking forward, there is no doubt the disruptive digital technologies will continue to drive a global wave of change that will increasingly see everyone connected to everything through smart technologies, smart devices and smart networks. The challenge for Telstra and indeed the challenge for Australia as a nation, is to harness these many opportunities by focusing on innovation.
Telstra is innovating in the way we add value to our products and services, and in the way we foster new skills and mindsets critical to success in a connected digital future. I'll now hand over to your chief executive Andrew Penn, to comment on our operations for the year in more detail. Thank you very much.
ANDREW PENN:
Well, thank you very much, chairman, and good morning, everybody. In my first opportunity to address an annual general meeting of shareholders, I wanted to share with you three things this morning. Firstly, an overview of last year's financial and operational performance and the outlook for 2016. Secondly, and building on the chairman's comments, some reflections on what's driving change in our industry that will shape our future, particularly from a technology perspective. And thirdly, to reassure you as your new chief executive, that our strategy remains unchanged. But we are lifting the level of our aspiration to make Telstra a world class technology company, a world class technology company that empowers people to connect. I wanted to start, though, by reflecting on the fact that during a period of incredible technological change, one thing remains more important than ever before, and that's customer service. We have spent the last five years on executing a transformation program to put the customer at the heart of everything that we do.
And whilst we have made good progress on this journey, we have more to do. We still experience too many instances where we do not deliver everything that we should. Too many instances where we do not make it as easy as we should for our customers to do business with us. And my commitment is to ensure that we stay focused on addressing this, on providing our customers with simple solutions at greater speed. And during my time as the chief executive of Telstra, that is my number one priority. Now let me recap on 2015, there were many highlights. Firstly, we welcomed 664,000 new retail mobile services and we now have 16.7 million retail mobile services in Australia. To put that number in context, it is more than the number of average aged working Australians in Australia. We also welcomed 189,000 new retail fixed broadband customers. And pleasingly more than two thirds of our broadband customers choose to bundle those services with other services from Telstra, such as our entertainment. We rolled out 3,500 public Wi-Fi hotspots.
This is part of a $100 million commitment to create the largest Wi-Fi network in Australia, with 16 million hotspots connected internationally through a partnership with Forme. We now have more than 180,000 customers on our Wi-Fi network. During the year, we continued to build our capabilities in new businesses, in e-health, in cloud And software in our network and services area, right the way across the Asia-Pacific region, we acquired PacNet, the largest privately owned intra Asian network operator, and that acquisition has added 29 data centres, 109 points of presence and nearly 250,000 kilometres of submarine cable to our growing global network. We partnered with Telkom Indonesia to launch a joint venture to deliver network applications and services in that market. And of course, we completed 5 million service and installation jobs, answered 44 million calls to our service centres and received almost 200 million unique visits to telstra.com. Crucially, we saw more of our customers become advocates for Telstra as we improved our net promoter score by five points.
We know we have more to do to improve customer service, but we did make strong progress in 2015. Turning to our financial performance, on a reported basis, total income for the year, excluding finance income, was up 1.2% to $26.6 billion. EBITDA was down 3.5% to $10.7 billion, and net profit after tax was down 5.8% to $4.3 billion. This was our first full financial year operating without CSL- the Hong Kong mobile business, which we sold in May 2014 and this impacted our income and profit numbers on a comparative basis. On a guidance basis and excluding CSL for comparative purposes, total income was up 6.6% to $26.3 billion, EBITDA up 4.5% to 10.8 billion, and earnings per share increased 0.3% to 34.5% per share. And if you heard from the chairman, the board declared a final dividend of 15.5 cents per share and this took the total dividend for the year to 30.5 cents per share, up 3.4% on 2014. So in summary, 2015 was a strong year for Telstra, a year in which we grew revenues. We added fixed and mobile customer services.
We continued to invest in our networks and returned 4.7 billion to shareholders in the form of dividends and through the $1 billion off-market buyback in October of last year. These results give us confidence that our strategy is working. Customer advocacy has improved, we continue to drive value from the core of our business, and we made important progress laying foundations for growth in the future. Our guide for, our guidance for 2016 is to deliver mid-single-digit growth in total income and low-single-digit growth in EBITDA. Free cash flow is expected to be in the range of $4.6 to %5.1 billion and capital expenditure is expected to be around 15% of sales to fund increased investment into our mobile network. This guidance is based on wholesale product price stability and no impairments to investments. It excludes any proceeds on the sale of businesses, mergers and acquisitions in the purchase of spectrum. Capex to sales guidance excludes externally funded Capex. Now, in relation to wholesale pricing, there have been two important decisions that have been made by the ACCC since we announced our results in August, and I would like to update you on the expected impact of those decisions on our 2016 reported results as these are not included in our guidance.
Firstly, on 13 August, the ACCC released its final decision in relation to wholesale prices for Mobile Terminating Access Services. We estimate the net effect of this decision on FY16 will not be material on a reported basis on EBITDA but will result in a reduction in reported revenue of approximately $350 million. The second decision was last Friday when the ACCC released its final access determination for fixed-line services. Unfortunately, the decision does not follow the ACCC's fixed pricing principles. These require your company to be able to recover from wholesale customers, the costs of the services that we provide to them. Any regulated entity should be concerned by this, especially in circumstances where the opportunity for a merits review has been removed. Because investors in infrastructure need a regulatory framework in which fix pricing principles are followed, a regulatory framework where their costs are able to be recovered. Otherwise, important investment decisions in investments in infrastructure are unlikely to be made.
We are particularly disappointed to see that the ACCC departed from its draft decision in March. That decision correctly recognized the importance of providing price stability to the industry at this time of transition to the NBN. The estimated reduction in reported revenue and EBITDA in 2016 of the ACCC's final access determination decision for fixed-line services is expected to be a reduction in EBITDA of up to $80 million. Needless to say, we are extremely disappointed in this decision and we are considering options for appeal. On a more positive note, Let me now move to the second topic that I wanted to address this morning, and that is the dramatic change we are seeing in our industry- change that we believe brings great opportunity. We operate in a market of accelerating technological innovation, and this is driving an ever-growing demand for connectivity. As the chairman mentioned earlier, there are three significant forces behind this. The growth of mobile, the emergence of cloud computing and advancements in machine learning in conjunction with big data and the Internet of Things.
20 years ago, there were less than 100 billion mobile devices in the world. Today, there are more than five billion. Today, connected mobile devices, like smartphones and tablets, are used for everything from emails to shopping, watching TV to banking and many other activities. And of course, this trend is accelerating. Globally, mobile data grew nearly 70% in 2014, and of course, the new significant trend is the Internet of Things. Billions of connected devices, from vending machines to household appliances, aircraft equipment to agricultural machinery and cars. And I will return to connected things or the Internet of Things in a moment, but it is the fastest-growing part of our mobiles business today. And as a consequence of our ongoing investments in seeking to ensure that our customers have the best network experience in Australia faster downloads, fewer black spots, greater reliability- mobiles is the largest part of our business today. The second area of technology innovation, the chairman mentioned, is the cloud.
There are significant productivity and service benefits for organisations and enterprises from cloud computing. And that is why a recent research study of large Australian companies showed that 86% are now using cloud in their production environment. It's also why it is one of the fastest-growing parts of our business which grew more than 30% last year. In fact, Telstra, your company today, is the leading provider of hybrid cloud solutions in Australia. The third significant area of technology innovation is machine learning and its interface with big data and the Internet of Things. Connected devices producing an exponential growth in the volume of data on digital networks and advanced algorithms are taking us into the world of machine learning. And through these technologies, computers can now see and hear better than humans and can learn as we provide them, more data. Software and devices can now be used to assist in diagnosis and treatment of a range of illnesses, including cancer with speed and precision and at scale.
And in future, of course, many traditional service activities will be done by computers more quickly, more cheaply and more accurately. It is these incredible global trends that are driving change in the shape and capability of our company. These trends that underpin their decisions to invest in new opportunities, such as intelligent video through the platform of Ajala and such as Telstra Health, as you heard from the chairman. Your company is at the intersection of so many exciting digital changes in the world today. And this brings me to my third and final topic of my address this morning, which is how we are lifting our level of aspiration to become a world-class technology company? The global technology shifts that I discussed are profound and I strongly believe the technology innovation can bring enormous benefits. And that is why I describe myself as a technology optimist. As I said in my introduction, our strategy remains unchanged but as the light of technology innovation accelerates, we see great opportunity.
Great opportunity for those that embrace technology innovation and a great opportunity for Telstra. Because Telstra is no longer simply just a phone company, technology provides everything that we do today. Our vision is that we now take this to the next level and become truly world-class. A world-class technology company that empowers people to connect with world-class customer service, world-class technology and world-class telecommunication networks. And I would like to finish on this last point of telecommunication networks. The traditional worlds of technology and telecommunications are converging, and network coverage and quality is crucial. There is no technology innovation that is occurring today that does not rely on an underlying network of connectivity. And that is why at Telstra, we are committed to have the best networks. For many years, the foundation of Telstra's success has been our network excellence, and this remains the heart and soul of your company. We are already investing billions of dollars in our networks, and this year we announced further significant investment into our mobile network.
We will increase our total capital expenditure to 15% of sales for the next two years and this will provide more than another $0.5 billion for mobiles. In total, over the three years to June 2017, we expect to have invested more than $5 billion in Telstra's leading mobile network. We will continue to expand our 4G footprint to 99% of the population. We will increase our overall geographic footprint to more than 2.5 million square kilometres, which we believe is double that of our next nearest competitor. We are committed to maintaining our mobile leadership in Australia, committed to offering our customers better coverage, better core reliability, fewer dropouts and faster downloads. Importantly, we believe that Telstra's network will be the best equipped to meet the explosion in video traffic that the chairman has spoken about and which today is already challenging other networks. But it's also not just about the mobile network, Telstra Air a nationwide WiFi program, which I mentioned before, is providing our fixed broadband customers access to their home data allowances when they are away from home.
We will continue these investments in innovation in network engineering and in access technologies. Technology is taking us into a world of rapid change, constant innovation and increasing competition, but in the end, what is important here is that it is about our customers. Technology is just simply a way to make their lives easier, their business is better, which is why our vision is to make Telstra a world-class technology company. In conclusion, I would like to thank you all and all of the Telstra staff for their dedication and hard work this year. I would also like to thank the very senior, very capable senior management team for their determination to continue improve the business, to try new things and to build a culture where people feel valued and where they want to come to work. Last week, I announced three new senior leaders being promoted to the executive team- a sign of the depth and diversity of the talent within the organisation and careful succession planning. I would also like to thank the chairman and the board for their support and guidance since I assumed the role of CEO in May.
And finally, I would like to offer my sincere thanks to my predecessor David Thodey, both for his great contribution during his career with Telstra, but also for supporting and advising me and ensuring my smooth transition into this role. It's an exciting time for Telstra. We see a great future for your company as we work together to make it not just a better company, but a world-class technology company. Thank you again for your time this morning and I will now hand back to the chairman. Thank you. (APPLAUSE)
CHAIRMAN:
Well, thank you, Andy. Now, shareholders, there are four remaining items of business today. I'll shortly introduce and invite questions on these items, but before I do, I'll outline the question and voting procedures for today's meeting. So when you registered this morning, you would have been given a card. Yellow cards are for shareholders who may speak and vote, blue cards for shareholders who may speak but not vote. You will need your card to ask a question or to re-enter the meeting. I will introduce each item separately and then invite questions from the floor. There are several microphones in the room, so if you would like to ask a question, please move to the reserved seating beside a microphone and one of the microphone attendants will help you from that point. I am pleased to see that we've had a really good turnout at the AGM today, so thank you all very much for coming. But we do have some shareholders attending the AGM from an overflow area. So if those shareholders would like to ask a question, could you please make your way to the main auditorium in the Savoy Ballroom, where one of the attendants will be able to direct you to a microphone.
Please show your card to the microphone attendant and give your name. And as a courtesy to all shareholders, please also state your affiliation if you are not here today in your personal capacity. The microphone attendant will invite you to the microphone when your turn comes. In the interests of all shareholders present, please ask only one question at a time, keep your questions and comments to no more than two minutes to allow as many shareholders as possible to speak. And if your question relates to a particular item of business, for example, director election or remuneration policies, please ask your question when we come to that item of business in the meeting and do ensure that your questions are relevant to shareholders as a whole. If we can't answer your question fully here today, we will aim to provide you with a response after the meeting. Finally, if you have an individual, customer or shareholder issue, please speak with one of our customer service staff who are outside and will be able to help you.
There are some also in the room and they have Telstra shirts and badges on- so readily identifiable. Now there are three items requiring a shareholder vote today. So for shareholders with a yellow card, the voting boxes are on the back of your card. We have received proxies from approximately 31,000 shareholders and direct votes from approximately another 14,000. The votes recorded for and against each item will be shown on the slide behind me at the conclusion of the discussion of that item. The four numbers displayed will include proxies received and available to be voted by me as chairman of the meeting. Telstra's share registrar is Fran Kelly of Link Market Services Ltd will act as the Returning Officer in relation to the poll, and the results of the poll will be available later today on our website and also at the ASX. A light lunch will be served at approximately 12pm. However, if the meeting is still underway at that time, we will not be adjourning the meeting for lunch. So, I'll now turn to item two on today's agenda, which is to discuss the company's financial statements and reports for the year ended 30 June 2015.
This item provides shareholders with the opportunity to ask questions about our 2015 results and questions on the management and the operations of the company generally, as well as the conduct of the audit. As I mentioned earlier, there will be an opportunity to ask questions on the election of directors and our remuneration policies when we come to those items later in the meeting. So I now invite shareholders to move to a microphone to ask questions on this item. We're just taking a moment to get organized here, I think. Perhaps if we can... On microphone one, perhaps we could start with microphone three.
SPEAKER:
Chairman, I have a question from Douglas Ransome from DBRHML Super Fund.
DOUGLAS RANSOM:
Good morning, Madam Chairman. Unfortunately, I can't see you behind that once you're there.
CHAIRMAN:
I might just get... Microphone attendant one, could you move the one...
DOUGLAS RANSOM:
How about that?
CHAIRMAN:
Oh, perfect. Yes, good.
DOUGLAS RANSOM:
Actually, I have a question of Andrew Penn, who's just made some comments about the adverse costs Telstra will bear as a result of the ACCC decisions. And so far in this meeting, there's been no comment about the recent changes to the telecommunications interception and access amendments, which have been a bit in the news in the last week, generally dealing with the new costs and burdens associated with data retention. And I'm wondering whether Mr Penn or any other member of your board is able to make some comment about the expected burden and costs associated with these recent legislative developments?
CHAIRMAN:
Thank you very much, Mr Ransome. Well, actually, we're pleased to say that Telstra is one of the few, if not only, I think, telecommunication providers that has submitted the Data Retention Plan and had it approved by the government. So we are organized to do this and we will implement it over 18 months and of course, we will work with the government following through on their undertaking to reimburse us for the costs incurred. So that's a conversation that's ongoing. Once we go through, our implementation would have a better understanding of what the costs are and absolutely we will seek to recover those costs from the government. But we are well on top of this issue and as I say, have our plan approved and implementation underway. So we're very conscious of regulatory costs incurred and will absolutely recover them as we can. So thank you very much for that question. So if I could move to microphone one?
SPEAKER:
Chairman, I have Paul (UNKNOWN) from Adelaide.
PAUL:
I'm as nervous as hell now, and I hope that I touch on some of the things that everyone is thinking and too frightened to stand up and speak. I'm gonna read, first of all, begin by expressing my thanks to Catherine, the board and for the opportunity to discuss my concerns as a shareholder. It's a rare opportunity and shareholders should not miss it because this is our only chance of making contact with you. For our part, it's really no mean fit. It's expensive to travel all the way from all over Australia to come to Melbourne and listen, see and express our views on how our company is being managed. On every occasion that I've attended, Catherine and the board have willingly responded with answers to questions from the floor of the AGM. Now, as shareholders, we also have the opportunity to have some insight into the culture of this iconic organisation and its willingness to listen and respond. At the 2014 AGM, one shareholder took a stand and made known his displeasure of the illusionary gain of the discounted buyback.
Now, this exercise was unfair to mum and dad shareholders, and I sincerely hope that the message has been heard and that that exercise doesn't take place again. The board was urged to reinstate the Dividend Reinvestment Plan. And the long term shareholders who want to see their commitment to this company grow are extremely grateful for the board for listening and responding accordingly. Now, several years ago, I was at an AGM and heard another shareholder stand up and urged the board to diversify its operations of Telstra into other areas such as banking. I don't really feel that's a smart thing to do. Once you're in competition with your customers, I think you'll lose your customers. I didn't support that course of action, but at that time. But I do feel that there is an opportunity at the moment that the board should re, should assess anyway. The government is looking at privatising Australia Post. Now, I can see an opportunity to resurrect the old PMG and vertically integrate...
SPEAKER:
Question!
CHAIRMAN:
Sorry, can we just...
PAUL:
Guys, you know how nervous I am? Oh, dear.
CHAIRMAN:
Alright, so look, I'm sorry...
PAUL:
Now, I'm going...
CHAIRMAN:
The shareholder asking you question. It is (CROSSTALKS) Mr (UNKNOWN) if you could get to, you've made some points already and I'll respond to those.
PAUL:
My question is this, I really wanna see Telstra's earnings come from other sources besides telecommunications. I wanna see vertical integration. Now, I want to see us taking over not just the delivery of data, but the delivery of goods and other services, and I feel that this is a stepping stone in the right direction. But I'm gonna cut all the speech out completely and say to you that we as a company have done extremely well. I...
SPEAKER:
Wait a minute. Yeah, Mr (UNKNOWN).
PAUL:
I've got a heckler and I'm gonna cut it here, but I'll finish off. Andy, congratulations on your appointment. Your speech was absolutely spot on. It's what I wanted to hear. It's what other people wanna do. Please, let me know if you have any intentions of moving into other areas besides those we are currently involved in. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN:
OK, thank you, Mr (UNKNOWN). Could I actually just make a couple of comments there? Look, we do recognise that it's an effort for everyone to come to the AGM. What we have done in recent years is we have retail shareholder presentations in all of the states where we are not actually holding the AGM in that year. So...
CATHERINE LIVINGSTONE:
...please bear that in mind. So next year, there will be a separate retail shareholder presentation in Melbourne because we won't be having the AGM here. Thank you for your comments on the DRP. Yes, we did listen to shareholder feedback and have reintroduced it. In terms of diversity of earnings, I think you heard hopefully through my remarks and those of the CEO that we are actually diversifying in adjacencies, and we're doing this in a very considered way. And the products that we're delivering are digital products and digital services because basically, this is a software world. So our diversification is through our networks and our products like Telstra Air, the Wi-Fi network, but it's also the diversification in terms of the expansion of our networks in Asia and the services that we're able to provide to our Asian customers. And of course, we have our Telstra Health, which is an adjacency where we're offering connectivity services, digital services within the health system. So I think we are very focused on, if you like, extending our capabilities into adjacencies and different products and services.
So thank you very much for your question. I think microphone one again.
SPEAKER:
Chairman, I have a question from Peter Starr, a shareholder from Sydney.
CATHERINE LIVINGSTONE:
Thank you.
PETER STARR:
Yes. Good morning Catherine, and good morning board, and most importantly, good morning, ladies and gentlemen and fellow shareholders. That's very important. I'm representing a number of shareholders: Leading family from Sydney, Doctor Justin's Cumming, and now Cummings, Dyer Mcinerney Trust and Superannuation Fund one and two. On behalf of the shareholders I represent, I'd like to thank you, Catherine, for your leadership. You've been there a long time and it's very valued and appreciated. Yesterday, I received an email from the outgoing CEO, David Thodey. He asked to mention to all the shareholders here that he wasn't able to be here, but he will be at the next one in Sydney as a shareholder. To you, David, you did a great job. And on behalf of the shareholders I represent, I wanted to just thank you personally, and they've asked me to thank you as well, and I know you'll hear the broadcast. A couple of the great things that David did, ladies and gentlemen, was hire Andy Penn. And what a great appointment and hiring it was.
So congratulations, Andy. Look after our company, do it well - I'm sure you will. And to you Warwick Bray, who took over into Andy's position, look after our finances, I'm sure you will. To Jeff and to John who are going, thank you, Jeff, you did a lot of work on the NBN negotiations. I remember the meetings very well. Yeah, a round of applause, ladies and gentlemen, I think he really deserves it. I'm about to.
CATHERINE LIVINGSTONE:
Yeah, I think we need - we do need to get to your question.
PETER STARR:
The question - one of the questions I have, Andrew, is that there was a recent report as of about three weeks ago which raised concerns about the mobile network where a politician was actually hacked and they showed it. Now I know some of my investors that I represent were a bit concerned about that. I wonder if you could cover that for the general shareholders. It also goes to relevance on the questions about the data retention a bit too as well. So if we could just maybe have some clarification on that? Thanks, Catherine.
CATHERINE LIVINGSTONE:
Absolutely. Thank you, Mr Starr. I think there were various aspects of that 60 Minutes program, and without going into the technical details of it, can I say on the Telstra network, we have very rigorous and constant monitoring. We can pick up unusual activity on our network almost immediately and then we monitor our - basically, the way we work is rapid identification and rapid response, and we have timeframes in that. The other point about that particular described event, on Telstra's network there's actually masking of location. So what was purported to be able to be done could not be done if you're on the Telstra network. But can I assure you that we take security incredibly seriously and we have invested enormous resources in protecting the security of our network? So, thank you. Microphone three, please.
SPEAKER:
Chairman, I have a question from Hans Witteveen from Melbourne.
CATHERINE LIVINGSTONE:
Thank you.
HANS WITTEVEEN:
Thank you, Madam Chairman. The CEO spoke on the subject of customer service, which is a - he recognized the things that we need to fix, as well as the things where we're doing well. I'd like to put one that we do need to fix. And now, I'm speaking as a customer rather than a shareholder. It's one thing to win customers. It's another thing to customers to drift in if they're in trouble. When I was in trouble, the old fault number in the directory, you can't find it anymore. Who do you call? In the end, I wound up calling the normal Telstra number and I got shuttled from this call centre to another. And eventually, we wound up overseas, and this is where I want to - I asked the board to consider whether we're getting value for money from contracting out instead of using our own people, because neither India nor the Philippines was (INAUDIBLE) conscious of difference in time zones, and they didn't understand the technology. And when they funded us talking about something different and (INAUDIBLE), they wanted to put me back in the queue for another 48-hour wait.
They didn't understand public hazards. All up I'd like, and I have put this to you at a previous annual meeting. I'd like the board to consider going back to Australians for Australian jobs because I didn't think we were getting value for money out of my personal experience as a customer.
CATHERINE LIVINGSTONE:
OK. Alright, thank you very much. (APPLAUSE). And as Andy has reiterated, clearly we take customer service really as an absolute priority. And there is always more to do, so I'm sorry you had that experience, and if you can follow up with one of our customer service people. In terms of contact centres, we do use various partners both in Australia and in the Philippines to provide contact centre resources. Actually, our focus is on providing online access for our customers so that they can transact in a way and at a time that suits them. And in fact, we have over 52% of transactions now online, which is excellent. In terms of the contact centres, we hold all contact centres to the same standard of performance. And in fact, the board went to the Philippines earlier this year to actually see for itself and understand the training and the standards and the processes used in those contact centres, just as we have done in the contact centres in Australia. So we recognise there is much more to do and we continue to invest in training and process improvement, including using digital technologies to improve the contact centre experience.
In terms of jobs in Australia, we have increased the jobs in Australia. We have added people, particularly in our newer businesses, so in our Telstra health and also in our global enterprise and services business. So we're very conscious of our role in Australia as an employer. But thank you for that question. Going to microphone two.
SPEAKER:
Chairman, I have a question from Gary B.O.B from Brisbane.
GARY B.O.B:
Good morning, Madam Chairman. I'll be very specific. I'm concerned about cyber attacks and would like to know what Telstra has done with regard to cyber insurance.
CATHERINE LIVINGSTONE:
The cyber insurance, Mr B.O.B, is effectively the processes that we have in place, and we feel we're best positioned to understand how we can protect our networks and our customers from cyber attacks. So we have a very clear understanding of what we have to do around our data to know where it is and who has access to it. We have very good connections with various authorities who keep us up to date on an hourly basis in terms of potential cyber-attacks. And then we have our internal processes and invest heavily in the skills and capability of our people. I think the vigilance on cyber security has to be literally hour by hour because of the innovation by people with mal intent. And we're very aware of that, and that's why we have so much invested in protecting our networks. I can assure you there is nothing more important than the security of our networks and the confidence that we can give to our customers. We don't take out specific insurance. Effectively the self-insurance is our own capability.
It's not helpful to get reimbursement after the event when the damage is done. Our absolute focus is on making sure as far as possible that damage can't be done in the first instance. Are there any other questions at the moment? Shareholders, this is your opportunity to ask about any aspect of the business or the accounts. All right. Well, thank you very much for your questions, and we've now finalised our discussion on this item. So I now turn to Item 3A on today's agenda, which is to consider the re-election of Russell Higgins. And you heard from Russell at the start of today's meeting and his details are set out in the Notice of Meeting. Russell is an experienced company director who's worked at very senior levels of both the government and the private sectors, and he's been a non-executive director of Telstra since 2009 and a very valuable member of the Audit and Risk Committee. So the board, other than Russell Higgins, recommends his re-election. I'll now take any questions you may have regarding Russell's re-election.
Well, if there are no questions on this item, the proxy and direct voting position is being shown on the slide behind me. And as indicated in the Notice of Meeting, I intend to vote all available proxies on this item in favour of Russell's re-election. So please fill out your voting cards for Item 3A. I now turn to item 3B, which is to consider the re-election of Maggie Seale. Again, you heard from Maggie at the start of today's meeting and her details are set out in the Notice of Meeting. Maggie has been a non-executive director of Telstra since 2012, and again a very valued member of the Audit and Risk Committee, and she has more than 25 years of experience in senior executive roles in Australia and overseas, including in consumer goods, global publishing and the transition of traditional business models in a digital environment. So the board, other than Maggie Seale, recommends her re-election. I'll now take any questions you may have in relation to that re-election. Alright, if there are no questions, again, the proxy and direct voting position is being shown on the slide behind me.
And as indicated in the Notice of Meeting, I intend to vote all available proxies on this item in favour of Maggie's re-election. So please fill out your voting cards for Item 3B. I now turn to Item 3C, which is to consider the re-election of Steve Vamos. Again, you've heard from Steve at the start of today's meeting and his details are set out in the Notice of Meeting. Steve has more than 30 years of experience in the information technology, internet and online media industry. He's been a director of Telstra since 2009 and has an important role as a member of both the nomination committee and the Remuneration Committee. The board, other than Steve Vamos, recommends his re-election. I will now take any questions you may have on Steve's re-election. So if there are no questions, again, the proxy and direct voting position is being shown on the slide behind me. And as indicated in the Notice of Meeting, I intend to vote all available proxies on this item in favour of Steve's re-election.
So please complete your voting cards for item 3C. I now turn to Item 3D, which is to consider the election of Trae Vassallo as a director. You have heard from Trae at the start of today's meeting and her details are set out in the Notice of Meeting. Trae is based in San Francisco and is an experienced technology executive, investor, and advisor working in Silicon Valley and with a successful track record in the technology and venture capital sectors. We are pleased that Trae is able to commit her time and energy to Telstra, given her wide range of expertise. And given her experience in sectors and technologies of strategic interest to Telstra, the Board recommends her election, and we believe she will make an immediate contribution to the board if her nomination is supported by shareholders today. I'll now take any questions you may have on Trae's election. Microphone one.
SPEAKER:
Chairman, I have a question from Peter Starr, a shareholder from Sydney.
PETER STARR:
Thank you. Just a quick question. Trae, welcome. I know before this has been mentioned at other meetings, but new directors make certain to get some skin in the game or some shades. Welcome aboard.
CATHERINE LIVINGSTONE:
Thank you, Mr Starr. As you know, we have a guidance that all directors on the board hold 50%, in terms of value, of their director-based director fee in Telstra shares. They have some time to build that up, but it is a shareholding requirement for directors. So thank you for your point. If there are no other questions, we have now finalised the discussion of this item and the proxy and direct voting position is being shown on the slide behind me. And as indicated in the Notice of Meeting, I intend to vote all available proxies on this item in favour of Trae's election. So please now fill out your voting cards for Item 3D. So I now turn to item four on today's agenda, which is to consider the grant of performance rights to the CEO Andrew Penn under Telstra's financial year 16 long-term incentive plan, as outlined on the screen behind me. Details of the proposed grant are set out in the explanatory notes to the Notice of Meeting. In summary, if shareholder approval is obtained, each performance right will, subject to satisfaction of the performance measures described in the Notice of Meeting, entitle Andy to one fully paid ordinary Telstra share at the end of the three year performance period.
The number of performance rights being 758,564 represents the maximum potential number of shares that may be earned by Andy under the FY16 LTI plan. The actual number of shares he may receive in 2018 will be determined based on the company's performance over the three year performance period. Any shares earned, if the performance rights vest, will be subject to a further one-year restriction period, which means that they can't be traded. The board, other than Andy Penn, considers the granted performance rights to the CEO to be appropriate in all the circumstances and recommends that shareholders vote in favour of Item four. I will now take any questions you may have on this item. The microphone four.
SPEAKER:
Chairman, I have Noah Levy from Wollongong.
NOAH LEVY:
Good morning, Miss Chairman. My first question is, why do you not have options instead of rights? In the case of options, the Executive have to put some of their money into the business when they're vest, if they do vest. So why don't you have options? That's my first question. Do you want some other questions, or?
CATHERINE LIVINGSTONE:
Well, if you just have one other question, if we can deal with everything and then I can respond, but if you have a huge list of questions, perhaps not. (CROSSTALK).
NOAH LEVY:
Well, directly, the remuneration is too generous. Like all the remuneration systems, he gets 200% of his fixed annual remuneration, but also in the short term, I think he gets a similar amount. So at the end of three years, he'd have a short-term incentive vesting and you'd have his long-term vesting as well. So there'd be both vesting in the one year. So the vesting period being three years, I think it should be longer, at least five years. Otherwise, there should be no short-term incentive. Just the long term for three years would be fine. The other thing with the rights, sorry I've got to mention these now that they've come to head. The rights, they're based on the relative total shareholder return. Now, that's not aligning the performance rights with the shareholders. If it was absolute total shareholder return, yes, but not with this relative. If you had options, yes. Yes, it'd be alright. Do you agree or disagree with that? That, whether you use absolute or relative, does make a difference?
CATHERINE LIVINGSTONE:
Alright, Mr Levy, thank you for those questions. Perhaps if I could address them, we'll pick up some of the responses in the next item, which is the remuneration report. But just going to a couple of your points in terms of the remuneration here, we're asking for approval for the 200% level of allocation to Mr Penn. That is not necessarily and is unlikely to be what he receives, but in terms of the process here, we have to ask for approval for the maximum so that we're able to award under that level. The 200% is the maximum. If you look at the history of what's been awarded, it is historically below that. So it's just a process in terms of the cap. In terms of the overall vesting, with the rate of change in this industry, we have a long term incentive linked to our three-year plan projections because the uncertainty beyond that time in terms of the financials and projections is high and it would be demotivating to hold people to account for over a longer period. What we do is actually after the three year period, we have a further one year where they may be awarded the performance rights, but they are still subject to the performance of the company because they can't deal with those performance rights for another year.
So that is effectively a four-year period for our LTI. And we think that's an appropriate matching of shareholder interest and motivation for senior executives. In terms of your point on absolute versus relative TSR, we compare our TSR to the performance of other companies in our industry, and that's a global basket of companies, as we describe in our accounts. So we do believe that outperformance relative to them is more meaningful to shareholders and to executives than an absolute performance compared to other industries which may have no basis of comparison with telecommunications, for example. So that's a decision that the board has spent much time looking at, and we formed the view that our relative performance to others in our industry is a much better benchmark than an absolute performance to a basket of companies where the industry sectors are very different from ours. In terms of your point about options versus performance rights, again, if you go back, there were various changes in both taxation and accounting provisions, and we looked at this issue and determined that we would actually use performance rights as the basis of our long-term incentive plans, and we felt there were more effective than options.
Alright, if there are no more questions at this time, so we've now finalized our discussion on Item Four and the proxy and direct voting position is being shown on the slide behind me. As indicated in the Notice of Meeting, I intend to vote all available proxies in favour of the grant of performance rights to the CEO. So please fill out your voting cards for item four. I now turn to item five on today's agenda, which is to consider Telstra's remuneration report for the year ended 30 June 2015, as outlined on the screen behind me. I will now invite John Mullen, who's the chairman of your remuneration committee, to provide some introductory comments regarding this year's remuneration report before I invite questions from the floor. John.
JOHN MULLEN:
Thanks. Great. Well, thank you very much, Catherine, and a very good morning to you, our shareholders. Now our aim in preparing the remuneration report is to enable you, our shareholders, to understand the links between remuneration, company strategy, and Telstra's performance, as well, of course, as a framework that we have put in place to provide effective governance over remuneration at Telstra. To support this, we have sought to provide a comprehensive overview of our performance remuneration outcomes, including additional voluntary disclosures, as well as a summary of our governance practices. There are three significant items addressed in the report, which I'd like to mention before commenting on the outcomes for fiscal year 15. Firstly, on David Thodey's retirement, all benefits that he received were in accordance with his contract of employment and the terms of the relevant incentive plans, with the exception that the Board exercised discretion to allow David to retain a pro-rated amount of his FY15 long term incentive subject to the performance conditions and restriction periods in the plan.
The Board consider this appropriate to reflect his contributions to the company's success up to the time that he retired. Secondly, Andy Penn's fixed remuneration as CEO of 2.325 million was set between the 25th percentile and the median of ASX 20 companies, which the board considers to be appropriate for a new CEO. I would note that this is less than David's Thodey's fixed remuneration at the time of his retirement. Finally, following a review, the board decided to increase the chairman's fee to positions appropriately against the ASX 20. Catherine Livingstone did not participate in this decision, and also no other changes were made to any of the Committee or Non-Executive Director fees. Turning then to the remuneration outcomes for senior executives for fiscal year 15, our remuneration philosophy is based on linking financial rewards directly to employee contributions and the company's performance, and the overall structure and the philosophy of our approach to remuneration remain consistent this year with last.
JOHN:
As you've heard this morning, Telstra continue to perform very well in fiscal year 15 across most key measures, including financial results and customer service. And the remuneration outcomes for 15, therefore, reflect the strong performance of the business and the value of creative shareholders over the past four years. To summarise the key outcomes under our incentive plans this year, firstly, for the fiscal year 15 Short Term Incentive, or STI, all senior executives participated in the same STI plan, with the exception of the group executive for Telstra Wholesale, who, for specific regulatory region reasons, participates in a standalone plan. Our senior executives received an average of 61% of the maximum opportunity available based on the assessment of financial customer advocacy and individual performance. The performance measures of the plan, which they were charged against, were Free Cash Flow, EBITDA, Total Income, Customer Advocacy, Net Promoter Score, NPS and executives individual performance objectives.
And the board selected these performance measures as it believes they are a critical link between achieving the outcomes of our business strategy and increasing shareholder value. Turning, then, to the long term incentive, or LTI, the performance period for the fiscal year 13 LTI plan concluded on the 30th of June 2015. The outcome of that was that 85.5% of the maximum opportunity vested as restricted shares. Under this plan, there were two performance measures, as you've heard, relative total shareholder return and free cash flow return on investment. If I could make a brief comment on the structure before going on to the outcome for this year, this incentive plan recognises both the importance of a market-based return measure and the central role of long term free cash flow generation in creating shareholder value. The feedback that we have received from the overwhelming majority of institutional shareholders is that they support this structure for our LTI. The results of the two planned measures were that the Telstra RTSR ranked at the 70-second percentile of the comparative group and Telstra achieved a free cash flow return on investment outcome of 20.5%, which exceeded the target of 19.3% for the fiscal year 13 LTI plan.
The reported value of these restricted shares reflects the fact that Telstra's share price increased by more than 66% over the three year performance period. The shares, as Chairman noted, allocated to executives under this plan are subject to further restriction period ending in August 2016. Consistent, then, with (UNKNOWN), the board has determined remuneration outcomes under our incentive plans to ensure that there were no windfall gains or losses due to the timing of the NBN rollout and by adjusting for non-recurring items, such as spectrum purchases and acquisitions and divestments. So this year, in determining the outcome of the free cash flow measure under the LTI plan, there were larger adjustments for these items than in prior years due to the number of significant events over the planned performance period. These included fiscal year 15 investments in mobile spectrum that we now use for 4G services, the divestment in fiscal year 14 of significant businesses, including the CSL mobiles business in Hong Kong, and a majority stake in Census.
The adjustments also included the variance between the actual NBN rollout and our assumptions in the fiscal year 13 three year plan. And for this plan period, the actual rollout by NBN Co was less than 25% of that assumed in the plan. The NBN related adjustments have both positive and negative impacts for senior executive remuneration across the different incentive plans as a result of the board's resolve to ensure that there are no windfall gains or windfall losses for management. As a result of the size of the adjustments this year, we have received feedback from some shareholders relating to the level of detail we provided when explaining the outcome under the cash flow performance measure this year. The board takes the feedback provided through this advisory vote very seriously in reviewing our remuneration practices. And while we understand that a full reconciliation of these calculations would assist shareholders in assessing how the board determine the outcome, there are some adjustments, including those made to ensure there are no windfall gains or losses due to the timing of the NBN rollout, which we do not release the detail for because of the commercial and confidence nature of that information.
We do, however, explain our approach in the remuneration report. And the calculations we made and the remuneration report itself were also subject to review by our external auditors. So we do believe that shareholders can take confidence from the fact that the outcome of this cash flow measure vesting at 80% is aligned with the shareholder return measure, vesting at 91%. This alignment is, in our view, consistent with the central role of long term free cash flow generation in creating shareholder value. Thank you very much, shareholders, and thank you, Catherine.
CHAIRMAN CATHERINE LIVINGSTONE:
Thank you, John. So following those explanatory comments, the board recommends that shareholders vote in favour of the adoption of the remuneration report. And I'll now take any questions that you may have in relation to this item. So Microphone 1.
SPEAKER:
Chairman, I have a question from Mr Murph McDougall from Beechworth, Victoria. He's representing the Australian Shareholders Association.
MR MURPH MCDOUGALL:
Madam Chairman, before discussing the remuneration, I'd like to offer my congratulations to you and the board for the smooth transition to the new CEO. This is a key responsibility of boards, which is often doesn't quietly go as well. so thank you on that. In general, the principles on your remuneration structure and the ISI policies are broadly aligned. We only have a couple of little differences. And one I'd like to raise is the Short Term Incentive plan. We would like to see at least 50% of the Short Term Incentives allocated in equity. At the moment, you allocate 25% in equity. And I just ask that in your next review, perhaps you look at that, whether you could increase that extent at all. But apart from that, we support the remuneration report. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN CATHERINE LIVINGSTONE:
Thank you very much, Mr McDougal. And yes, we do have 25% deferral. So that means, in terms of the short term incentive, people receive 75%, but 25% is withheld. And that goes into Telstra shares so that the employee is still exposed to the performance of Telstra for that 25%. I'd also add that, just in terms of alignment with shareholders, we do require senior executives to hold Telstra shares to the equivalent value of their fixed remuneration. So they must have that minimum shareholding throughout the time. So that, I think, also helps to align interests between executives and shareholders. Microphone 1, again.
SPEAKER:
Chairman, reintroducing Peter Ster from Sydney.
CHAIRMAN CATHERINE LIVINGSTONE:
Thank you.
PETER STER:
Thank you, chairman. Just following up from the gentleman from the Shareholders Association. The Mum and Dad Shareholders, I know this is a big thing. STIs, LTIs, and things like that, I think it's commendable to remember two things, ladies and gentlemen. You pay people peanuts, we get monkeys. And I don't want monkeys running the company. Secondly is that, as Mr Livingston has explained, this is a very fair and equitable system. And if you look at the outgoing CEO, still holds all his shares and he has no plans to sell. OK, thank you.
CHAIRMAN CATHERINE LIVINGSTONE:
Thank you for those comments, Mr Ster. Microphone 3.
SPEAKER:
I have a question from Scott Hunter, a shareholder from Melbourne.
SCOTT HUNTER:
Hello. How do the remuneration... The remuneration comes out of the profits of the company. How do the profits come from charging people a fee to pay their account with cash in a Telstra shop of $2? I think that's unjust. And also, phone cards have an expiry date. These are paid for at a real money and if you haven't used them by a certain day, the money disappears. Perhaps if directors fees had an expiry date, it'd honour me to understand what this meant.
CHAIRMAN CATHERINE LIVINGSTONE:
Thank you, Mr Hunter. I mean, in terms of the fees that we charge for certain methods of payment of bills, this is really to help offset the costs in providing the ability to pay the bills in that way given that we have enabled so many other platforms in terms of digital ways of paying the bills, and we would really encourage as many people as possible to take advantage of those methods to pay their bills. But I do acknowledge your feel point. Are there any other questions? Microphone 3.
SPEAKER:
Chairman, re-introducing Douglas Ransom from DBRHML Super Fund. My apologies. This is Hans Witteveen from Melbourne.
HANS WITTEVEEN:
Madam Chairman, I would have to express my disagreements with you and my support for the previous speaker on the subject of having to pay a fee to pay your bill. The way business is done in this country is that you use a service. You expect to pay for it. You get an invoice or an account, whatever you want to call it, you pay it. You don't have to pay a surcharge for you to accept payment. If you want to express it as a discount for a different payment platform, I guess that's an option to look at. In my personal customer experience, so before the meeting started, I had an issue with bill payment. My account has just been altered without my request or consent to pay to have a bill rendered by email. I find that objectionable because this was computer generated. It wasn't something I've wanted. I've had it fixed. The people at the front fixed it fairly quickly and efficiently. But I think if we're going to start asking for a surcharge for people to just pay their bill, then there's something wrong with this company that we ought to look at.
CHAIRMAN CATHERINE LIVINGSTONE:
OK. Thank you, Mr Witteveen. And I think I would just reiterate the response I gave to the previous shareholder on the fee issue. Are there any more questions on the remuneration report? Alright. Well, look, thank you for your questions. We've now finalized discussion of this item, and the proxy and direct voting position is being shown on the slide behind me. As indicated in the notice of meeting, I intend to vote all available proxies on this item in favour of the adoption of the remuneration report. If you could please fill out your voting cards for Item 5. Shareholders, that concludes our discussion of all items on today's agenda. And if you haven't already done so, please, complete your voting card and place it in one of the ballot boxes which the attendants are carrying through the room or in one of the ballot boxes near the exits. And the poll will remain open for a further 15 minutes to enable shareholders to cast their votes. As I said, the results of the poll will be available later today and can be obtained by visiting our website or that of the ASX.
Can I say, thank you very much for your attendance today and for staying throughout the full discussion of all of the items. We do appreciate your coming and we do value your feedback. So all items of business having been considered, I now declare the meeting closed. Thank you very much.
The 2014 AGM of Telstra Corporation Limited was held on Tuesday 14 October 2014 at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre, Corner Merivale and Glenelg Streets South Bank, Brisbane Queensland Australia.
Recording of the 2014 AGM held on Tuesday 14 October 2014 at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre.
CATHERINE LIVINGSTON AO:
To acknowledge the traditional custodians of this land, and pay my respects to their elders past and present. We have a quorum, and I declare the meeting open. A notice of meeting has been distributed and will be taken as read. There are five items of business on today's agenda. Presentations by myself and your CEO, David Thodey. Discussion of our 2014 financial statements and reports. Consideration of the election and re-election of directors. Consideration of the proposed grant of performance rights to the CEO. And finally, consideration of the remuneration report. Voting on items three to five will be conducted by a poll, and that poll is now open. So, if for some reason you need to leave the meeting early, you can vote by completing your voting card and placing it in one of the ballot boxes near the exits. I would now like to introduce Telstra's Auditors. Joining us today from EY is Steve Ferguson, and he's available to answer any questions on the conduct of the audit and the auditor's report.
Joining me on stage, David Thodey, your Chief Executive Officer. Damien Coleman, your Company Secretary, Andrew Penn, your Chief Financial Officer, and your board. So, I'd now like to invite your directors to introduce themselves individually.
GEOFFREY COUSINS:
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Geoff Cousins. I've been a member of your board for eight years now, and I am also a member of the Nomination and Remuneration Committees. You know, this is really an entirely different company, to the one that I joined eight years ago in almost every sense, from the way it treats its customers, to the results it delivers to its shareholders. And I'm very proud to have been some small part of that. Thank you very much.
JOHN MULLEN:
Good morning, everybody. My name is John Mullen. And I've had the privilege of being a Director of Telstra since 2008. And today, I am standing for re-election. Currently, I am also the Chief Executive of another ASX 50 company called Acciona. And if I am re-elected today, which obviously I hope I will be, I believe that I have many years of experience working in Asia, working in the United States, working in Europe, particularly in the areas of change management and remuneration. And I have the privilege of being the Chairman of the Remuneration Committee. Thank you.
MARGIE SEALE:
Good morning, everybody. My name is Margie Seale, and I joined your board in May 2012. I'm a member of the Audit and Risk Committee. I'm a company director with senior executive experience in Australia and overseas, with a particular focus on the transition to new digital business models, brand management, customer management, and sales and marketing. I'm extremely proud to be a Director of Telstra and to work on your behalf, for its continued success. Thank you.
RUSSELL HIGGINS:
My name is Russell Higgins. I've been a member of the Telstra board since 2009, and I serve on the Audit and Risk Committee. I bring a broad range of skills gained from being a director for over 20 years of listed companies, private companies, government business enterprises, and international organizations. And from an executive career, including as a CEO in the Australian government and at the OECD in Paris, I look forward to another rewarding year at Telstra, and to helping guide Telstra through the many opportunities and challenges that lie ahead. Thank you.
PETER HEARL:
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Peter Hearl. I was both honoured and delighted to join the Telstra board in August of this year, and I'm equally honoured to stand for election today. I believe I bring a wide range of experiences from 40 odd years of corporate life around the world, including Asia, Europe and North America, with companies such as Exxon, PepsiCo and Yum, as well as a number of other Non-Executive roles. My experience in fast-moving consumer goods businesses will I trust assist Telstra in building consumer advocacy. If elected, I can promise you, I will also bring a passion for brand building, talent development and constant innovation, which I believe can help contribute to Telstra's growth strategies in the years ahead. Thank you.
NORA SCHEINKESTEL:
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Nora Scheinkestel, and I'm the Chair of the Audit and Risk Committee. As you'll hear today, we've continued to streamline our portfolio this year with sales and acquisitions. And the audit committee has played an important role in overseeing the control framework, the accounting and reporting of those events, and the risk management associated with those activities. My executive career in finance, my over 20 years as a Non-Executive Director in many different industries, and my extensive experience chairing audit committees at major Australian companies, has allowed me to assist the board in making strategic decisions around these issues and leading the audit committee in its work. Thank you.
CHIN HU LIM:
Good morning. My name is Chin Hu Lim. I joined the Telstra board in August last year. I bring to Telstra almost 30 years of experience in the technology sector across the Asia-Pacific region. I'm currently involved in venture capital, as well as serve on several listed and private companies in the region. I'm delighted to continue to contribute towards Telstra's growth in Asia-Pacific. Thank you.
STEVEN VAMOS:
Good Morning, everyone. I'm Steven Vamos, I've been a Director on your board since 2009, and I'm a member of the Remuneration and Nomination Committees. I've over 30 years of experience in the information technology and digital media industries, and I've experienced the consequences of technology change in many different contexts, over that time. I have a real interest in how organisations embrace the leadership, culture, and management models required to guide their business through fast-changing times. It is a great privilege to serve on the Telstra board. Thank you very much.
JOHN ZEGLIS:
Good morning, all. My name is John Zeglis. I am now completing my eighth year of service on your company's board. I am an American, that's where I had a career in telecommunications, ending up as President of AT&T, and then when AT&T Wireless was demerged, CEO of that company. These last several years, I have been privileged to bring my own telecom experiences to bear on the special issues and extraordinary opportunities facing your company, Telstra. I am grateful for that opportunity and especially thankful to all of you for making it happen. Thanks.
CATHERINE LIVINGSTON AO:
Well, I would really like to take this opportunity to thank my fellow directors for their contribution and support during the past year, it's a very strong board for your company. I would also like particularly to welcome our newest Director, Peter Hearl, who, as you have heard, brings valuable experience in building multinational brands, and in doing business in Asia. Today marks the first time Telstra has held its annual general meeting in Queensland. And Queensland is such an important part of our business. We have more than 9,000 people here, approximately 45,000 kilometres of optic fibre cable, and more than 1,700 Telstra Mobile towers, which provide coverage to nearly 99% of Queensland's population. Telstra also pays $31 million each year in local and state taxes in Queensland. Many of you would also be aware that Brisbane will next month host the G20 Heads of Government Summit. And Telstra has built the new Queensland government wireless network that uses state of the art, communication technologies to connect law enforcement and emergency response teams.
And beyond the G20, the network will be expanded to the remainder of South East Queensland and will provide ongoing emergency communications during critical events like cyclones and bushfires. I would now like to make some comments about Telstra's financial results for the year. 2014 was a year of continuing momentum for your company, a year in which we saw growth in revenue, profit, and customer numbers in line with our commitments. These results demonstrate the value being created by our strategic focus on improving customer advocacy while continuing to invest in our core and growth businesses. Our net profit after tax this year was $4.3 billion up 14.6%, on the previous year. We also increased our total dividend for the 2014 financial year to 29.5 cents per share fully franked, distributing $3.7 billion back to shareholders. As part of our capital management strategy, we have also successfully completed a $1 billion off-market buyback of Telstra shares. Under the buyback, which was announced on the 14th of August 2014, Telstra bought back around 217.4 million shares or 1.75% of issued capital.
The buyback price was $4 60 per share, which represents a discount to the market price of 14%. And payment for shares bought under the buyback will commence from today. We undertook this buyback because we had excess capital as a result of our strong operating performance, together with cash from key divestments completed during the year. We believe the buyback is of benefit to all Telstra shareholders. For those shareholders who did not participate, the buyback is expected to improve the earnings per share ratio, because the number of shares on issue has been reduced. Turning now to the NBN. The new federal government elected last year, determined that the design of the NBN would be modified to use a range of technologies instead of the previous government's predominantly fibre to the premises approach. As a result, we are currently engaged in renegotiations with the government and NBN Co, on aspects of our 2011 definitive agreements. The renegotiations are progressing well and the parties are working constructively towards a common goal.
Through all of this, we are committed to acting in the best interest of you, our shareholders. We are focused on maintaining the value of current agreements, achieving certainty of outcome as soon as possible, and minimizing any additional regulatory risk. I'd now like to comment on our longer-term strategy. During the year, we refined our strategy and made some changes to better align our efforts with growth opportunities both in Australia and overseas. Our strategy focuses the business on three key priorities. Improving customer advocacy, driving value from the core, and building new growth businesses. And I'd like to discuss each element in turn. So, on improving customer advocacy, we continue to regard this as our highest priority. Every day and right across the business, we're striving to earn the advocacy of our customers by having a positive impact on their lives with our products and services. Feedback through our net promoter system indicates that we did make progress this year.
Nonetheless, we still have much work to do to ensure that we consistently provide our customers with an outstanding experience on every occasion. Our strategy also includes an ongoing focus on driving value from the core of our business.
CATHERINE LIVINGSTONE:
Telstra's remarkable network, upon which so much of our reputation and core advantage is built, is a key part of our future, and is something in which we continue to invest. In this context, this year, we started design work on a new $100-million, five-year project to create what will be Australia's largest national public WiFi-access network. Our range of products and services also continues to change, as new technologies emerge and customer demand for connectivity and mobility grows. Only five years ago, much of our revenue was driven by voice over fixed and mobile phones. The focus then shifted to data over devices, and now increasingly, we provide solutions over networks. Moving to our third strategic priority, which is building new growth businesses: in this much of our focus is in Asia, where we are looking to capitalize on our Asian and global network capabilities and opportunities in fast-growing markets across the region. Some people may not be aware that Telstra's networks offer customers more than 2,000 points of presence around the world.
We also operate an extensive submarine cable network. These are key facilities which we will continue to leverage as we pursue growth. An important part of the growth strategy is being able to build partnerships across the region, and we were very pleased recently to sign a joint venture agreement with Telecom Indonesia to provide network applications and services to businesses in the Indonesian market. Another long-term focus for growth is the development of our Telstra health business, and here we are working to help build a health system that is more connected and improves opportunities for services like in-home monitoring of ill, elderly or remote Australians. Turning now to our management of our portfolio of businesses: recently, we added to our capabilities by acquiring software-based online video and analytics company Ooyala. During the year, we also undertook a range of other portfolio-management activities. This included the sale of our stake in the Hong Kong mobile business CSL, taking advantage of an opportunity for us to maximize our return on this asset.
We also announced the sale of a 70% stake in our Census directories business, establishing a partnership with Platinum Equity to maximize the value of the Census asset for Telstra. Shareholders, you would also be aware that part of our presence in China is through our 62.9% stake in Autohome, that country's leading online destination for car buyers. During the year, we moved to evolve the capital structure of that business by listing it on the New York Stock Exchange, and today, that investment is worth approximately $3 billion to Telstra. Through all of this activity, our approach to managing our portfolio continues to be active and disciplined, and always with the intent of maximizing value to shareholders. Let me return briefly to the subject of accelerating technological change. Many of the technologies that drove our results this year were barely conceived five years ago, but the growing demand for smart wearable devices, smart network solutions in the cloud and the establishment of our own software development team all point to the fact that Telstra is, today, a very different company from what it was when many of you first became shareholders.
We are constantly seeking to nurture the innovation mindset and culture inside the company, and this includes the creation of our own innovation incubator, called muru-D, and our online collaboration tool, the innovation hub, which is a wide-ranging online community that facilitates problem-solving and innovative thinking across the business. All of this contributes to our determination to find new ways of having a positive impact on the lives and businesses of our customers, through our products and services. In this environment of ongoing change, this year, we clarified our organizational purpose, which we now describe as being to create a brilliant, connected future for everyone, and five key values underpin this, and they centre on caring, collaboration, trust, simplicity and courage. And these values define our commitment to good corporate governance, responsible business practice to our customers, to our workforce, to the environment and to the communities in which we operate. And Telstra is committed to playing a positive and active role in building better communities.
We want all Australians, regardless of their age, income, ability or location, to be able to enjoy the many benefits which modern communication technologies bring. To that end, this year, we have continued to focus on ensuring that everyone has the opportunity to build the skills and confidence to participate safely in our increasingly digitized world. Through our Everyone Connected digital inclusion programs, we provided digital literacy training to 143,000 older Australians. Our Access for Everyone program also provided $145 million in benefits, including home-phone-rental concessions, to more than 1 million households, including those on low incomes. And through the Telstra Foundation, we're also supporting a wide range of social innovation programs, including our partnership with Code Club Australia, which aims to give every Australian child the chance to learn computer code: a critical skill in the digital edge. In closing, I would like to take this opportunity to thank David Thodey and his senior executive team for their efforts during the year.
Telstra is very fortunate to have such a highly talented and high-performing team of leaders. I would also like to thank the entire Telstra team for their work in delivering the many achievements that I have described here this morning. As we look forward, we continue to focus on improving customer advocacy while investing in our core and growth businesses. Shareholders, your company has delivered on the commitments we made for 2014, and we are, again, committed to building on this momentum in the year ahead. I will now have over to your chief executive officer, David Thodey, to present our operations for the year in more detail. Thank you very much.
DAVID THODEY:
Well, thank you very much, Chairman, and let me just add my good morning and thank you very much for coming. It's a great pleasure to see you all here, and also to everyone who's joining us online. It's always a pleasure to come back to Brisbane. I went to primary school here, and so it's always great to be in the Sunshine State. So, to my report. First, as the chairman said, 2014 was a strong year: a year in which we delivered consistent earnings growth, we increased shareholder returns and we continued to build on that momentum for our future growth. It was also a year in which I'm very pleased to say a lot more customers said, "We're just about ready to be an advocate for Telstra." Our continuing focus on finding ways to make a real and positive contribution to the lives of our customers, the community where we operate and of course the productivity of this great country, through the wonderful products and services that we deliver. And it's all about what we say, creating a brilliant, connected future for everyone.
And there were some really great highlights during the year. We welcomed nearly one million new domestic retail mobile customers, and we now have 16 million customers on that network. In fact, if you look back over the last three years, we've nearly added four million new services to the mobile network. We also announced our 100 million commitment to creating one of the world's largest WiFi networks here in Australia, which will also be linked internationally. Telstra WiFi aims to offer all Australians, whether you're a Telstra customer or not, access to two million WiFi hotspots, right across this great nation over the next five years. We will have about a thousand hotspots, hopefully, turned on by Christmas, which will include another 350 here in Queens and especially in holiday locations. We also established new businesses, as Catherine mentioned, in eHealth, software and also security solutions, which is so important for the future. We also announced a very important international partnership to deliver network application services to Indonesian enterprises, and the partnership is with Telkom Indonesia.
This is a first and a very important initiative for us. And importantly, very important, we conducted 11 million customer surveys. I dare say, many of you may have been surveyed. On average, 30,000 every day, we get feedback on how we can do better, for which we appreciate all your help. So 2014 was a very busy year. What I'd like to do today is to cover off firstly, just a little bit more detail on the financial results, give you more information on our strategy. And that's just a little bit more in some details than Catherine gave you, comment briefly on the NBN and also just reaffirm our outlook for this year. So let's start with the financial performance. Our total income increased to 26.3 billion dollars, up 6.1% on the previous year. EBITDA was up 9.5% to 11.1 billion dollars and net profit after tax increased 14.6% to 4.3 billion dollars. These results were underpinned by our commitment to provide our customers with the best connectivity on Australia's best networks. And we are seeing continued growth right across Australia in the usage of devices and the demand for our services as well as across Asia.
In fact, right across the world. That is why we continue to invest significantly in our networks. Also, we must continue to invest in customer experience and very, very importantly, we must continue to innovate, innovate around products and services. We must be an innovative company. Let me now turn to the elements of this growth strategy. As the chairman mentioned, our strategy centres on three key pillars, firstly, around customer advocacy, secondly around driving real value from this core domestic business and also building these new growth businesses. So let me just go through a little bit of some of the detailed things that we are doing around these initiatives. Firstly, customer advocacy. I want to stress, this is our number one priority. It is hard to do, and we see it not just as serving our customers, but actually providing such a great service that our customers will become advocates for Telstra. That's a really different type of experience that you've got to create because when someone says they'll be an advocate for you, that is a far greater level than just saying the service is OK.
We're committed to building Telstra into being a business that has the customer right at the centre of every decision, every action, every opportunity, and do it every day. Bold words, but very hard to do. As a part of this thinking, we have moved during this year, to providing what we hope will become a trademark for the company around providing personalized service. I want to give you some examples of this because it's just early stages, but I hope it gives you an insight into the type of company we want to be. We made a really big change in our contact centres. When you ring our contact centres now, our operators will give you their name and contact details. It's a very simple but powerful change that means if you need to get back in touch with us, you can go directly to that person who you've already explained your issue or your need or your opportunity. And this is so important in providing a more personalized service, but it's just not in our contact centres. If you now go into our stores and you buy a new postpaid mobile service, you'll get a phone call from that consultant that served you within 48 hours, just making sure the purchase is OK, everything's working OK.
Just that personalized contact that we think is something we really want to be known for. Also, our really important field technicians who are out every day, visiting about 30,000 homes. When they come to your home, they leave a calling card and whether they're installing a new service or actually fixing, maybe a problem, again, this means that you don't need to ring back into the call centre. You can ring directly to that field technician and talk about whether the problem's gone away or what service you need. These may seem small changes. They are very hard to implement, but they are really significant in terms of driving a more personalized service and really getting some humanity back into the way we deal with our customers. Now, we know we don't get it right every day, but we are trying, and we're going to keep trying until we get to that lofty ideal of nearly every time having a great experience. But it hasn't been just in personalized service, we've been doing lots of other things because you've got to provide great products and services along the way.
One of the important areas is people using their internet or their mobile devices more, keeping track of your usage of data.
SPEAKER:
Also, we've been looking at how we can cut international roaming charges, in fact, announced some significant changes just recently. And also, keeping you informed about how your services are working, where you're at in terms of your monthly plan. We've also introduced some really innovative new tools around your broadband for those who use our broadband services. It's a product called Telstra Broadband Assistance. And it allows you to actually determine how your network's working in the home, checking your WiFi network. And it's all a proactive service. And it's a very innovative solution. We also launched a new service called Telstra Platinum. The Platinum guys have a slightly different uniform but they're a one-stop-shop for all technical support that we provide to you, our customers. And you can either take it on a subscription basis or whenever you need it. Since we launched in November 2013, we've helped nearly 220,000 customers set up their home networks or provide support for their phones, their internet connection, their WiFi network, tablets, IPTV, or their computers.
And this has been very, very well received. Also, we've introduced a product called Telstra StayConnected for that horrible time when you lose your mobile phone with all your contact details, or you drop it in the water or something like that. And what allows you is the service that we can provide to quickly replace the mobile phone, get all the contacts back onto the phone. And this again has been a great service. We've helped about 360,000 customers since it was launched in September 2013, almost replacing nearly 30,000 - I think the number is 27,000 phones within 24 hours. Little things, but they make a real difference. And we've got lots more plans this year to keep innovating around the service we provide. One of the important services we wanna talk about is how we provide service. And you may be aware that more and more of our customers are now choosing to connect with us online. Some people call this the online revolution. In fact, every day we have about 1.5 million hits on our website, 1.5 million.
Each month, about 6 million unique users come to our website. We engage about 200,000 people. There is online chat. Some of you may not use it, but this is just when you're online, you can have a chat with a consultant. And we now have 1.7 million users of a little mobile application called 24x7. That allows you to monitor your bill and the sort of usage you've got. There is no doubt in my mind, this trend towards online services is accelerating - and we, as a company must become a more digital company. We've got to be more online. We've gotta do it in more innovative ways. So, we hope to become a digital company. However, I wanna stress one very important aspect of this is that we always give customers the choice of how they want to interact with us - whether you want to phone us, you wanna talk to us, or come online. But we have to be realistic. A lot of those people are under the age of 30, they only wanna deal with us online. So, we've got to build that capability as we move forward.
A subject that people ask me a lot about is our offshore call centres. And I'm sure that there'll be some questions today. So, I wanted to try and just take a moment to at least give you a perspective on this because it's very important and it really relates around two areas. One is the offshore core centres, but secondly, it's about the quality of service we provide. So, firstly, to the international call centres, there's no question, as I said, people are moving to online. So, actually managing the demand of phone calls coming in is getting more difficult. So, as we try to verbalize that workforce and as we try to drive the economies of scale by glow of using global providers, we think that managing this fluctuation of calls by using offshore call centres is a good business decision. This means, though, that our call centres will continue to decline in terms number of operators we have, not because people - we don't wanna provide the service, but just because the demand is going down.
So, we will continue to do this, but we are very committed to running a sustainable business around digital mobile. And we must be a part of a global world because more and more of our customers are actually coming from Asia. The second issue, which is a really important issue is the quality of the service we provide. And I wanna point out in all our centres, regardless of where they're based around the world, you should expect a high-quality service. And that means they understand you, they understand your need, they understand where you are, they have good communication skills, they understand privacy and security. That's irrespective of wherever they're based. So, we see this online move, we see strong usage of our call centres, both here and offshore, but will continue to decline over time. But our standards will remain very high. Customer advocacy must remain our number one priority. And while we've implemented many, many initiatives to improve the service we offer our customers, we still have a long way to go and we're always looking for help along the way.
So, now, let me turn to the second pillar of our growth strategy, which is driving value from this core business. The focus here is around customer and revenue growth. It's about technology network leadership and, of course, driving greater productivity by simplifying the way we run the business. I just wanna briefly touch on these areas. As you know, I would say the 4G mobile network is one of the best in the world. It covers 87% of the Australian population. And we now have more than 5.2 million 4G customers on the network. The quality, the outstanding coverage or reach in the popularity of our network continues to grow because we continue to invest in it. And I wanna give you a bit of a sense of how much we invest in the network. Since 2006, we've invested $5.5 billion in that network. And just last year we invested $1.1 billion. Growth comes from investment. Those who invest should reap the rewards. Even just last month, we spent $1.3 billion in a very, very important strategic holding in spectrum.
It's called the Digital Dividend Spectrum, not that you need to understand it. But what it will do is double the spectrum we have available to run that mobile network, which means better phone calls, better quality, better speed in terms of using your services. To many of our customers, this is very, very important, and this will service very well over the next decade. Also, I mentioned simplifying the business. This is a complex business. There's no two ways about it, but we don't need you to know how complex it is. We need to make it seem simple. And the simpler we make it, the more benefit we can drive to the bottom line. So, we continue to transform our internal business processes to streamline them, trying to remove barriers that get in the way of productivity. We're trying to be more like a team. And we're trying to use that by really galvanizing around the customer 'cause that's what gets us out of bed every morning. The total value of benefits we realize in full-year '14 was about $550 million of expense reduction.
Also, that included capital and avoided costs, which took it up to about a billion dollars. We must continue to really drive that cost reduction as we go forward because that allows us to reinvest in the business. Also, we continue to rebalance this business. As Katherine mentioned, as new technologies come, we have to change the structure of the business and often moving people from one division to another division. So, we're increasing resources in one area while we're sometimes decreasing in other areas. An interesting fact that I really wanna stress. Last year in Australia, we added 400 new jobs. We added 400 new jobs in Australia. And when you look across the international division, we actually increased hundreds of new jobs in the company. But at the same time last year, we made redundant 1,600 people. So, what's happening is you've got one division declining while we're reinvesting in new businesses. And this must continue, but we are very, very conscious of the impact that has on the community and on individuals, so we need to do it in the right way.
So, this is very important. The businesses continue to go through enormous change and we must continue to drive value from the core business. Let me now turn to the third area of really building new businesses for the future. When we talk about the future, we think about 2020. Our focus here is on realizing new and emerging opportunities that really leverage Telstra's great strengths. These are things that will underpin our growth in the future include things like network applications and services when we serve large enterprise customers, its expansion into Asia and other new opportunities like Telstra Health and Telstra Media. Our work in Asia is about offering a range of services and platforms, including these areas of the enterprise area of managed network services, international data, voice and satellite solutions, and leveraging the incredible legacy we had from the old OTC company of these submarine cable networks. People forget Telstra has done business in Asia for over 70 years, 70 years, we are not new to Asia.
As the Chairman said, we also continue to build our capabilities in this very important area of eHealth, and our vision here is to develop a truly connected healthcare system for all Australians. Since its inception last April, we have secured and or acquired made strategic investments and entered a new license arrangement with 11 ventures now. And we're building this strong capability and we think this is a very exciting future. It will take time, but we think it's very exciting. Some people may not be aware also that Telstra is Australia's largest IP or Internet Protocol television service provider through the T-Box. And that also leverages this very strong relationship we have with Foxtel. We added to this media capability during the year acquiring a Silicon Valley-based company called Ooyala, Ooyala. It's a leader in video streaming to the web. It's an unusual name, but it's catchy. Ooyala provides a software platform that delivers personalized video and TV experiences across multiple screens.
So, this allows you to watch television on your mobile phone, on your tablet, on your PC, on anything that is connected to the internet, but also it allows you to do publishing and what is called analytics about how people are watching different programs and, of course, to monetize it. So, I'm not sure you're aware, but if you look at your children or grandchildren, how they actually consume entertainment has fundamentally changed. In fact, some of my children don't even watch television anymore. They just do it on the PC or on their mobile phone. So, that's about growth. What I've taken you through is just talk a little bit about customer advocacy, about driving value from the core and about new growth businesses. They're our key strategic priorities. So, let me just talk a little bit about the National Broadband Network. The Chairman has already provided an update on our progress around finalizing these revised agreements with the Government. I would like to reiterate, though, that we are committed to acting in the best interest of you, our shareholders, and to maintaining the value of the current agreements.
We will keep you informant of the renegotiation as it progresses, but in the meanwhile, the NBN is rolling out and it's going to many communities right across the country. And we continue to be very focused on bringing more customers the benefits of what we can bring in terms of connecting to the NBN. Now, outside there's a number of displays and you can go and see the NBN and how it works, and I'd really encourage you to do so. It is interesting. And it's a nice, new, bright, shiny Telstra van out there as well that is cleaner than it normally is. I can assure you. So, I would encourage you gonna have a look. So, let me just conclude. I'd like to just start by thanking the incredible Telstra staff. You know, they really are incredibly dedicated and hardworking. You know, we're really fortunate to have such a great team right across the business. They have a commitment and a passion you don't find in many businesses, and it's a great pleasure to work with them. I'd also like to thank the senior management team, they're sitting at the front here.
They're a very capable team. And they've been absolutely fantastic because they're determined - they're absolutely determined to improve the business, improve the way we deal with customers, you know, find new things that make life better for our customers and to build a culture in the company where people really feel valued.
DAVID:
when they come to work. I'd also like to thank the chairman and the board of directors who provide incredible support and guidance to us. The management team. They provide great governance, which is so important, but also to us, the leadership of the company. Now, just a few words on the outlook, looking ahead in 2015, we expect continued low single-digit income and EBITDAR growth to offset the absence of the CSL business, which we sold out of Hong Kong, at that operating revenue and EBITDA. As a result, after you exclude the $561 million of profit on the sale of CSL in 2014, Telstra's income and EBITDA guidance for 2015 is broadly flat. But remember, we're picking up what we've sold. Telstra's expected 2015 free cash flow will be between 4.6 and 5.1 billion dollars, and capital expenditure, we think, will stay around the 14% of sales. So, in summary, in 2014, Telstra delivered consistent earnings growth increase returns to you, our shareholders, and generated strong operating momentum as we move into 2015.
Our focus remains on improving how we interact with all our customers and to have a genuine and positive impact on their lives with our products and services. We believe that focus is really positioning us well for good long term growth. I truly believe this is a really exciting time for Telstra. We do see a great future, a future for this company that we think can really make connection, this brilliant connection, just great for everyone that we serve. Thank you again for your time this morning. Thank you. (MUSIC PLAYS).
SPEAKER:
Well, thank you very much, David, and I hope you all enjoyed seeing that video, which really does represent our aspiration to create a brilliant, connected future for everyone. And shareholders, there are four remaining items of business, and I'll shortly introduce and invite questions on these. But before I do, I'll outline the question and voting procedures for today's meeting. When you registered this morning, you would have been given a card. Yellow cards are for shareholders who may speak and vote. Blue cards are for shareholders who may speak but not vote. You will need your card to ask a question or to re-enter the meeting. I'll introduce each item separately and then invite questions from the floor, as you see, there are several microphones located around the room. If you'd like to ask a question or speak on a particular item, please move to the reserve seating area behind one of the microphones. Please show your card to the microphone attendant and give your name. As a courtesy to all shareholders, please also state your affiliation if you are not here in your personal capacity.
The microphone attendant will invite you to the microphone when your turn comes. In the interests of all shareholders, please only ask one question at a time. Keep your questions and comments to approximately two minutes so that we can allow as many shareholders as possible to speak. And if your question relates to a particular item of business, such as the director election and re-election or remuneration, please ask your question when we come to that item of business in the meeting. And finally, do ensure that your questions are relevant to shareholders as a whole. And if we can't answer your questions here today will aim to provide you with a response after the meeting. If you do have an individual customer or shareholder question, please speak with one of our customer service staff and they'll be able to assist you. And they are located at the tea store outside, as David is mentioned and also at each microphone. And they should be wearing brightly coloured t-shirts with Telstra badges.
There are three items requiring a shareholder vote today. For shareholders with a yellow card, the voting boxes are on the back of your card. We received proxies from approximately 32 and a half thousand shareholders and direct votes from a further 14,000. The votes recorded for and against each item will be shown on a slide behind me at the conclusion of the discussion of that item. The four numbers displayed will include proxies received and available to be voted by the chairman of the meeting. Telstra share registrar Ms (UNKNOWN) of Link Market Services will act as returning officer in relation to the poll. And the results of the poll will be available later today on the (UNKNOWN) website and on our website. We will be serving a light lunch at approximately 12:00 noon. However, we will not be adjourning the meeting for lunch. I now turn to Item two on today's agenda, which is to discuss the company's financial statements (AUDIO DISTORTS). Over and done with, I thank the board for the opportunity to present my concerns.
I'm happy with what Telstra has done this year. Otherwise, I wouldn't be a shareholder, I would have bailed out long ago. But it's my opinion that the share buyback was not in the best interests of all shareholders and that Telstra could have better served them with a more equitable distribution of the excess cash. Not with the type of buyback which was implemented, but probably with the provision of a special dividend so that all shareholders can take some gains out of all their effort. The major beneficiaries of the buyback were the super funds in the pension phase to get the imputation credits because they pay zero tax and probably those shareholders whose taxable incomes fall below the threshold. But the vast majority of mum and dad shareholders don't fit into these two groups. They were offered the privilege of selling their shares for four dollars 60 when the market price is five dollars 40 and then pay on the sum of the franc dividends and imputation credits to pay the tax on that.
Now, any capital loss for them is most likely quarantined against some uncertain future capital gain and someone's certain future time. Now, these mum and dad shareholders all have to pay this tax, whilst at the same time receiving 14% less than the market price for their shares. And therein really lies an even more serious issue for all shareholders in Telstra. With this exercise, Telstra has exposed the fact that a significant number of shares can be bought at four dollars 60. Now, what signal does that send to the market? And what's the significance of this fact for the long term price of Telstra shares? Yesterday, the shares had a closing price of five dollars 24. I now ask the board, how does this unfair distribution fit in with your stated aim of driving shareholder value as that all shareholders rewarded for buying and maintaining their shares in Telstra? I'm urging the board to remember that it was the share volume of mum and dad investors that gave Telstra the political clout to defend this company from the intimidation that it was subjected to just recently.
Now, if this is a tactic that's going to be repeated in any future share buyback, I think for mum and dad investors it's probably well-advised to avoid it. Thank you. Great. Thank you very much, Mr (UNKNOWN), for those comments. In terms of the buyback itself, as you know, Telstra has a capital management strategy and dividends and fully franked dividends to shareholders are a very important part of that strategy. But we do have excess capital at the moment. And so the board formed the view that a small buyback in which is what we've done was actually in the best interest of all shareholders and the best use of that excess capital and a better use, for example than paying down debt with more shareholder value in doing the buyback than continuing to pay down debt. In terms of the benefit to shareholders, the participation in the buyback was an individual decision for shareholders, depending on their circumstances, and as you point out, there are different circumstances for different shareholders.
But we believe that the buyback was in the best interests of all shareholders, and buybacks actually benefit continuing shareholders in the sense that there are fewer shares on issue and therefore the earnings per share does go up and over the long term that underpins the share price. So, a buyback has important benefits for continuing shareholders, just as it might provide benefits for those shareholders whose circumstances lead them to participate in the buyback. But we did, as a board, we deliberated and took into account the interests of all shareholders in making that decision as part of our portfolio of capital management, which did include, as you know, increasing our ordinary dividend both at the interim and the final dividend this year. But, but thank you for your comments. If I can go to microphone four, please. Chairman, I would like to introduce Mr (UNKNOWN). Well, I do have some dissatisfaction with the process of the buyback because it did not equally satisfy the needs of all the shareholders, particularly disadvantage were the minor shareholders who had to sell the whole parcel or nothing.
And to do so at 14% reduction to the weekly average trade is a bit like this scam bloke who sends us off letters to say I'll buy you shares for nothing. So, at 14% discount that then sold at around about 50% to the purchase price. And while I'm on that point, the share, Telstra share price is still performing abysmally. Another point I'd like to raise is that we are the owners of the company and perhaps a bit more respect. The difficulty with security this morning stripping my bag down to the smallest items taking away small items that I need for glucose to attend the meeting and be well, they took them away and threw them in the bin. That's a little bit unfortunate that you employ such ruthless security people and I'll leave those comments, thank you. Thank you. Mr (UNKNOWN), we'll just if I can address the security issue. We do always have important security procedures at all of our AGMs and we always have done. And as a company, we are particularly concerned about security, as you know, including through all of our products, but also at forums such as this.
So, I understand the inconvenience that we all have to go through in terms of security, but this is an area on which we don't feel that we can compromise.
MS LIVINGSTONE:
Again, in terms of the buyback, I'll just reiterate my comments to Mr Micycles that the participation in the buyback being through a tender offer was really an individual decision for every shareholder. There was no requirement to participate. And as I've said, for continuing shareholders, there is a benefit through the increased earnings per share. So again, we thought that having considered all of the options for a buyback, that an off-market buyback in a tender format was the best approach to conduct the buyback and provide those shareholders with the option who wanted to participate, in fact, to participate through that process. But I would reiterate that we are strongly of the view that the buyback does provide a benefit to continuing shareholders through the increased earnings per share. Can I go to microphone one, please?
SPEAKER:
Chairman, I would like to introduce Peter Starr from Sydney.
PETER STARR:
Good morning Miss Livingston, how are you?
MS LIVINGSTONE:
Very well, thank you.
PETER STARR:
That's good. And good morning, David. I'm representing myself and quite a number of private equity shareholders, and some of them are superannuation funds. I will mention them. Mr Kane Dyer, Mr Bernard Lean Superannuation Fund, Dyer Mcinerney Superannuation Fund. Since the question in relation to the buyback has come up, I'll just say this, that I advised all my clients not to do that. We're very happy to hold and continue to hold, and it's good that we've come to Brisbane to have the meeting here. My apologies that I missed the meeting in Sydney, David, but... Just in relation to that buyback and something about the share price was raised for those who may not be aware, but I can tell you when the share price reached, when David first came in and it got down to 284, our share price under David Thodey's leadership has doubled to 560. There's been a slight pullback recently, but that is in market terms if you look at the market. Our market has dropped back to about, in the last 18 months given what's going on in the US market.
So we've gone from 284, we are up to 560. The increasing of the dividend that he announced and that the board announced, you've maintained that and you've increased it, and I think that's something that on behalf of the shareholders I represent, they want to tell you to keep going and to look to further increase. The other quick thing I want to say in relation to the buyback is that the shareholders that I represent, and there might be mum and dad shareholders here too that want to have, instead of taking the dividend but want to do dividend reinvest. Now, I know I have raised this before with you, Miss Livingstone, so it may be something to consider to give the option. I know it's just a thing that I get constantly asked about from the people I'm representing. I want to point out too that the people I represent are just mum and dad shareholders who have their superannuation tied up. And we're very happy to have it tied up in Telstra. Under your leadership, David Thodey, the company - go and have a look, ladies and gentlemen.
Go and have a look at the Telstra branding and the showrooms. They weren't there under your predecessor. He couldn't have cared less. You care. And that's what's important, and that's relevant right throughout your staff and the improvements that have happened. And you never bury your head in the sand. You never say, "Well, we're happy where it is." You want to strive and you continually do strive to make certain that these things happen. And that's what's so important. Also, I guess it's important, very important that you might mention, through Miss Livingstone or through yourself, David, in relation there was a court case in The ACT where it had to do with the NBN Co and the - we got awarded some money. So there again, ladies and gentlemen, our CEO is watching what's going on and making certain that NBN Co keeps to its word. So you might like to touch on it. They may be shareholders who aren't aware, like I'm aware in that matter, David. And some other things, because you are gracious and that you never mentioned, but... I might be long, mate.
Sorry, I'm over the two-minute (INAUDIBLE), representing a few people, so I'll be brief.
MS LIVINGSTONE:
I think you've given me enough things to respond on, Mr Starr, so I'm happy to respond on those. Just... Well, first of all, thank you very much for your comments and your analysis of the increase in the share price over the last five years. So it's certainly - our focus is on the earnings and then when the market translates, that's to the share price, clearly. We're very pleased to see that happen. On the DRP, yes, people do raise this often, but as the buyback has shown, we actually have excess capital at the moment, so we don't need a DRP to increase our capital. And I was very pleased to hear you mention the fact that it's evident that Telstra cares because that's one of our key values, which we have enunciated now. That is to show that we care, and we're trying to do that through all of our operations and all of our products. So I'm glad that it's coming through. And in terms of the NBN Court case, I think you're probably referring to the CPI increase where this relates to our existing agreements with NBN Co.
And we have a difference of view over when a certain CPI factor applies from and that's a matter that's before the courts. But thank you very much for your comments, Mr Starr. If I can go to microphone four, please.
SPEAKER:
Chairman, I would like to introduce Mr Michael Waterhouse.
MR MICHAEL WATERHOUSE:
Welcome to Brisbane. It's our pleasure to host a GM of Telstra. I am the representative of The Australian Shareholders Association and I represent the voice of over 3,100 shareholders and... Yeah, and almost 32 million shares. It's to do, again, with the buyback. I think it was eloquently identified, some of the issues in the first questioner, but in the recently completed share buyback, the price set was the volume-weighted average price of Telstra shares traded on the ASX. Why would a significant number of shares traded on the Chi-X be excluded from the price calculations? And is it true that if they had been included in the calculation? Shareholders participating in the buyback would have received a higher price for their share. The second point is since, with excess cash, you chose to do a buyback, it's the equivalent of an alternative investment. In your long-term incentive plan, you have a return on investment of 15.1% as your threshold to reward anyone for the company in terms of its investment.
What was the return on investment of the buyback?
MS LIVINGSTONE:
Thank you, Mr Waterhouse. Responding to your first question on the Chi-X traded shares, in fact, the ATO will not permit us to use the price of shares traded on the Chi-X as part of our volume-weighted average price. So, that was a compliance issue that we had to adhere to. In terms of buyback being an alternative investment, you're absolutely right, and we took that into account. And as I said, for example, it was better in terms of shareholder value to do the buyback than to pay down our debt. And we do have excess capital at the moment, so we feel in terms of our capital management framework, we have the capacity to make other investments. And as we've pointed out, both David and I have pointed out today, for example, we made the investment in Ooyala, so we have the capacity to make those bolt-on investments and we actually have a very low gearing. So in fact, we're determined as part of the capital management mix. So it's very important to understand this is an element in our capital management strategy, it's not our complete capital management strategy.
So we have an increased dividend and we have a buyback and we have the capacity to make ongoing investments. And also just in terms of the buyback and the dividend component, we did have excess franking credits which came from the acceleration of income tax payments. As you know, the government changed to a monthly remittance cycle from a quarterly. So that gave us additional franking credits that were excess to the ordinary dividend, and we felt it was important to return those to shareholders, particularly in view of the proposed reduction in the company income tax rate the government has foreshadowed.
MR MICHAEL WATERHOUSE:
May I ask that in next year's annual report, a section include the return on investment of the buyback, please, because this is becoming a common occurrence in many companies. And I'd like - we would like to see what the return on investment of that activity is. Thank you.
MS LIVINGSTONE:
Thank you, Mr. Waterhouse. Microphone one, please.
SPEAKER:
Chairman, I'd like to introduce Ian Maxwell.
IAN MAXWELL:
As another Queenslander, welcome to Brisbane. Nice to see all of you here. We don't get very many national companies feeling they have to circulate around the country, but it's nice to see Telstra has a sense of social responsibility towards its shareholders as well as to everybody else.
MS LIVINGSTONE:
Well, we're delighted to be here, Mr Maxwell.
IAN MAXWELL:
Just on this business of the shareholders, I refer you to page... The print is a bit small for me, I'm getting on for older years. 196 of your annual report, which gives the breakdown of shareholders. Now you don't have to look it up, but 20% of the shares are held by 90% of your shareholders, and they're roughly, give or take, about 1.2 million people. As I remember, the board report, none of you people on the board, all of your shareholders, but none of you would qualify as a small shareholder. All of you have more than 10,000 shares. So, you're not really in a situation where you understand the point of view of a small shareholder. Now, small shareholders, particularly with Telstra and a couple of other companies - Wesfarmers, Woolworth and the banks, what we basically want to do is, we want to spread our investments across a wide number of companies, solid companies, but we don't want to sell them. We want to, if possible, reinvest the dividends or live on the dividends, depending on whether we have plus or minus 60.
I'm over 60. I'm over 70 actually, and I'm in the stage where I am living off dividends, but prior to that, I'd like to reinvest them. The last thing small shareholders want is a buyback. All it means is, we sacrifice the shares for illusory return, and that only works if we're in pension mode. What we would like is more shares. Now why don't - if this ever comes up again, why don't you ever talk to Richard Goyder? Wesfarmers have a much more approachable brilliant approach as far small shareholders are concerned. They actually give you the money back. They reduce the cost. They reduce the value of individual shares. It's a much better way as far as we're concerned because we don't have to give up our shares. We don't have to mortgage or give up future dividends. We don't want share buybacks. The only people who want share buybacks are big superannuation funds. Right? That's the first point. The second point is, you've got over 600,000 shareholders, or I don't know - after the buyback it's probably less than that - with less than 1,000 shares or less.
You're going to have 500,000 shareholders with 5,000 shares or less. Now, those people would love probably to reinvest their dividends and acquire more Telstra shares. But you've got no dividend reinvestment scheme. Now, obviously, you don't need to acquire the capital, but you've just proved that you can buy shares on the market.
MR MAXWELL:
Cheaply. And even if you didn't buy them at a discount, you could still negotiate the brokerage a lot more easily than any individual shareholder. I mean, I know shareholder is going to go along and say, 'Oh, I've got a $400 dividend from Telstra, I'll reinvest in Telstra shares.' It's too hard. The costs are too high. What we'd like is for you to come up with a dividend reinvestment scheme where you buy the shares on the market for us. Don't charge us brokerage. And use your clout, I can assure you it would cost Telstra very little and it would reward the small shareholders, and it would reduce... (APPLAUSE) It would reduce the administrative costs of servicing shareholders because gradually, over time your small shareholders would become much bigger shareholders. Now that's what we want. We want to know why you can't be innovative. And what were the other words you use? Make it simple. Reduce the complexity as far as small shareholders are concerned.
CATHERINE LIVINGSTONE:
Alright, well. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr Maxwell. I think we will certainly take your points on notice.
MR MAXWELL:
I have a couple more questions to later on.
CATHERINE LIVINGSTONE:
Well, if you I don't think we have anyone else waiting at the other microphone. So if you would like to ask your questions a little bit briefly, if possible.
MR MAXWELL:
OK, well, they won't be... They won't be missionary questions like that. I'm quite happy to receive most of my shareholder communications electronically. It is an electronic age and I'm adapting. The trouble is, you use link as your shareholding the shareholder, whatever they are, and link is very uncooperative. I want to get my annual report written, right printed. I've tried using the online report. It has no search function. The interactive report, you can find things if you try hard enough, but you don't know where you are. So if you want to refer to a particular page, you can't do it. Frankly, neither of your online reports is what I would call shareholder-friendly. They are complex and they're not simple. So can you please tell link that if I want a written shareholder report, I can have everything else electronically? At the moment, you have a choice with link. You can have everything by post or you can have everything electronic. Or if you want everything, oh, they'll make an exception and send you your dividend statements by post.
You don't need that. If you go to Computershare or boardroom, you can have your annual return, annual report by post and everything else electronic. I have asked link over and over and over again, and they all say, 'Oh, that's what our clients want, but we won't do it because that's what Telstra says'.
CATHERINE LIVINGSTONE:
Well, Mr Maxwell, I think we will ask our company secretary who's in charge of this area to take the matter up with Link 'cause it's a very fair point.
MR MAXWELL:
Thank you, cool.
CATHERINE LIVINGSTONE:
Alright, I think we have... (APPLAUSE) I think we have no further questions, but I did actually just want to comment on one particular area that's concerning us and this is the number of calls that people are receiving from people purporting to be from Telstra. And we know it's causing a great deal of distress to people receiving those calls, and it's certainly causing distress to us to have the misrepresentation and sadly affecting our brand and our image. And we certainly work with the regulators to try and when these companies and these people are identified, we try and work with them- with the regulators to try and have them prosecuted, and there has been a recent successful case. But quite apart from that, we're actually about to start a new information program. So from almost, I think the bill is going out now, we will be including a small flyer that helps you identify whether it really is Telstra calling, and I don't know whether we can get that image up on the screen, but it is, it's a small brochure.
And if you just keep it with you so that you can identify the sort of questions and the sort of material that we would be talking about. And if it's not in that form in that format, then it is not Telstra calling. And if we could encourage you all too, with your friends and anyone in your community to also become aware of this program and will make the flyer available and also on our website, I would hope. So it's just something to just to have with you so that we can all working together prevent these scammers from their fraudulent activities. So can I thank you all for your questions, and we have taken those comments on board and we will follow up, particularly on the small shareholder issue, but we've now finalised our discussion on that item. I now turn to item three A on today's agenda, which is to consider and, if thought fit, pass the following resolution as an ordinary resolution, and that is that Mr Peter Hearl, being eligible, be elected as a Director. You heard from Peter at the start of today's meeting and his details are set out in the notice of meeting.
We regularly review the set of skills, the diversity, the experience and the expertise on the board, and we match it with our strategy. And this is to ensure that the board continues to have an appropriate diversity of thinking to enable it to discharge its responsibilities effectively and to be well equipped to help our company navigate the range of decisions before us. As David Thodey and I outlined earlier, building customer advocacy continues to be our number one priority. And we considered that the Telstra board would benefit from additional experience in this area, and we are very pleased that Peter has joined us. He brings considerable experience from industries, including consumer goods and in building customer advocacy for brands. This fits well with our need to be a company, be a company intensely focused on our customers in our decisions. Peter also brings very valuable experience from his time running businesses in Asia. So the board, other than Peter Hearl, recommends the election of Mr Hearl.
I will now take any questions you may have regarding his election. Microphone four.
SPEAKER:
Chairman, I would like to introduce back Mr Michael Waterhouse.
MR MICHAEL WATERHOUSE:
Michael Waterhouse, Australian Shareholders Association, again representing the voices of 3,100 shareholders. We welcome Mr Hearl on his appointment. Our only concern for Mr Hearl is his other directorships, good midfielders and treasury warrants. I just hope he doesn't bring any contagion with him, with those two, because they are not very shareholder-friendly in terms of having destroyed quite significant value. That's the only reservation Australian shareholders have.
CATHERINE LIVINGSTONE:
Thank you, Mr Waterhouse. I mean, clearly, we're not here to discuss the affairs of other organisations, but I can say that Mr Hearl was re-elected to those boards with over 99% votes in favour. And as far as his contribution, even in the very short time that he has been on the Telstra board, he's made a very strong contribution and it's clear that the skills that we were seeking in his experience have been evidenced during the discussion, which is why the board strongly supports the election of Mr Hearl. I think there are no other questions, so we now have finalised our discussion and the proxy and direct voting position is being shown on the slide behind me. As indicated in the notice of meeting, I intend to vote undirected proxies on this item in favour of the election of Mr Hearl. So if you please fill out your voting cards for item three A. I now turn to item three B, which is to consider and, if thought fit, pass the following resolution as an ordinary resolution that Mr John Mullen, being eligible, be re-elected as a Director.
Now you've heard from John at the start of today's meeting and his details are set out in the notice of the meeting. John has been a non-executive director since 2008 and he's a very valuable member of the board with excellent experience and a very important role as chairman of the remuneration committee. He has worked for over two decades in a number of senior positions with multinational companies, and his experience as a present Managing Director and CEO of Asciano provides him with current insights, particularly into remuneration practices which are very valuable for Telstra. Now, consistent with our practice each year since he took up his role at Asciano and as part of the board's recent annual director performance review, John's performance was assessed to ensure that his Asciano commitments were not impeding his effectiveness on the Telstra board. It was agreed by the board that they were not. The board, other than John Mullen, recommends the re-election of Mr Mullen. I will not take any questions you may have in relation to his re-election.
Microphone four.
SPEAKER:
Chairman, I would like to introduce again Mr Michael Waterhouse.
MR MICHAEL WATERHOUSE:
The Australian Shareholders Association would like to just make one comment of a concern around Mr Mullin's being the Remuneration Chair. Being a CEO, we have a concern around the possible conflict of interest. As Mr Mullen leads to the Remuneration Committee when he is a working CEO and a member of the CEO's club, surely, it's a conflict of interest for him to be leading the remuneration policy in amounts of the CEO and senior executives.
CATHERINE LIVINGSTONE:
Thank you, Mr Waterhouse. Well, we actually take quite the opposite view. And the fact that Mr Mullen is a current CEO means that he is very clear and very familiar with current remuneration practices and not just at the senior executive level but throughout the organization. And I can assure you, Mr Mullen brings to his role as Chair of the Remuneration Committee and inquiring and challenging and a questioning, as well as a very informed mind to that role and responsibility. Again, the Remuneration Committee makes recommendations to the board and all decisions are subject to board approval, including the CEO's remuneration. But I just want to emphasise that Mr Mullen's experience as an acting CEO is very valuable in terms of his role on the Remuneration Committee. I think we don't have any other questions, so we'll take the discussion on that item is finalised and the proxy and direct voting position is being shown on the slide behind me. And as indicated in the notice of meeting, I intend to vote undirected proxies on this item in favour of the re-election of Mr Mullen.
So if you can fill out your voting cards for item three B. I now turn to item three C, and as this involves my re-election, I will step down from the chair and invite Nora Scheinkestel, Chairman of your Audit and Risk Committee to chair the meeting for this item, Nora.
NORA SCHEINKESTEL:
Thank you, Catherine. Good morning again, shareholders. Item three C is to consider and, if thought fit, pass the following resolution as an ordinary resolution that Ms Catherine Livingstone, being eligible, be re-elected as a Director. Catherine's details are set out in the notice of meeting. She joined the board as a non-executive director in November 2000 and has been our chairman since May 2009. Catherine has significant senior management experience in the areas of finance and general management, especially in the medical devices sector. She's an extremely experienced non-executive director, having served on the boards of a number of large Australian corporates across a range of industries. And of course, as many of you will know, this year, she has been appointed as President of the Business Council of Australia. Catherine brings invaluable experience and expertise to the board as an independent non-executive director, your board believes that she is an outstanding chairman of your company.
And Telstra has seen considerable success during her tenure as chairman. The board, obviously, other than Catherine, recommends the re-election of Ms Livingstone. So I'd now take any questions that you may have on her re-election.
SPEAKER:
Microphone one. (INAUDIBLE). Sorry. Microphone four perhaps. Chairman, I would like to introduce (UNKNOWN). Once again, the Australian Shareholders Association wants to note that as Catherine is now being a member of the board for 14 years, we do not regard her as independent. After 12 years, a director is not classified in our policies as an independent director. The (UNKNOWN) understands that Telstra has a policy relating to the tenure of long-serving directors. Is there a policy relating to long-serving chairmen, if not, and why not? The reason I ask that question is because on election of this particular period, the next time Catherine might come for election as the chairman, she will reach the 12-year limit. Thank you, Mr (UNKNOWN) for your comments. Every year, the board conducts a review of our own performance and of each individual director and I, as chairman of the Audit Committee, in fact, conducted Catherine's review. And, of course, particularly for those directors that are up for re-election, the board spends considerable time assessing their suitability.
In that process, of course, tenure was an issue that the board gave a lot of thought to and independence. And as you've heard from not only David and Catherine this morning but also some of the directors when they were introducing themselves, Telstra's a very different company today from what it was five years ago, a little known when Catherine began. So, the board took into account that for independence, independence of mind is extraordinarily important. Catherine continues to bring a fresh external perspective. Her many other roles, particularly now with the BCA, brings an external perspective to our business that really is invaluable. So, the board was certainly comfortable that she does remain independent and on tenure that it was appropriate given the success of the company, the many issues that Catherine has studied over the last few years, some of which is still ongoing, that it was important and appropriate that we support her re-election. But we note your comments and I thank you for them.
So, now I'll try microphone one. Thank you, chairman, we have (UNKNOWN) for another question. Good morning, (UNKNOWN). We'd just like to say and express you Miss Livingston, that congratulations on the appointment of President of the Business Council. And also on behalf of the shareholders, we want to thank you, the ones that I represent, we want to thank you for the diligent and good job that you've done for Telstra. Thank you. Thank you, Mr (UNKNOWN), for your comments, and I'm sorry, Mr (UNKNOWN), I got my names muddled up. If there are no further questions, then I think we have now finalised discussion of this item and the proxy and direct voting position is being shown on the slide behind me. As indicated in the notice of meeting as chairman of the meeting for this item, I intend to vote undirected proxies on this site and in favour of Miss Livingston's re-election. So, if you could please now fill out your voting cards for Item three C. And as we have now finalized this item, I'll turn the meeting back over to Catherine.
CATHERINE LIVINGSTONE:
Well, thank you very much, (UNKNOWN), and can I thank you, shareholders? It's a huge honour to chair the board of your company and to be working with Telstra, which is one of Australia's longest and greatest organisations. So, as I say, it's a huge honour and thank you very much for your support. I now turn to Item four on today's agenda, which is to consider and if thought fit passed the following resolution as an ordinary resolution. "That approval be given for all purposes for the grant to the Chief Executive Officer David Thodey of up to 939,716 performance rights under the Telstra FY15 Long Term Incentive plan on the terms summarised in the explanatory notes. In summary, if shareholder approval is obtained, each performance right will, subject to satisfaction of the performance measures described in the notice of meeting, entitle David to one fully paid Telstra share at the end of the three year performance period. The number of performance rights represents the maximum potential number of shares that may be earned by David under their FY15 LTI plan.
The actual number of shares that he may receive in 2017 will be determined based on the company's performance over the three year performance period. Any shares earned if the performance rights (UNKNOWN), will be subject to a further one-year trading restriction period. David, as the CEO, is the only director entitled to participate in the plan. The board, other than David Thodey, considers the grant of performance rights to the CEO to be appropriate and recommends shareholders vote in favour of Item four. I will now take any questions that you may have on this item. I think we're waiting between Mr (UNKNOWN) and Mr (UNKNOWN). So, I'll go to microphone four.
SPEAKER:
Chairman, I would like to introduce (UNKNOWN). Thank you. Again, Australian Shareholders Association. Performance rights, long term incentive programs, short term incentive programs, fixed remuneration. The mixture of all those elements we find tends to be a bit of a black art. However, we have a number of policies that we try to encourage companies to take on. And I know a number of elements of the remuneration program that Telstra uses contradicts some of those policies. First of all, I know that the fixed remuneration is considered by the remuneration on their analysis and surveys of others to be approximately at the 50% or the mean of the companies they surveyed, so that the fixed remuneration is about right, according to where the board wants to place the fixed remuneration. Where we come to short term incentive programs, short term incentive awards are anywhere between, for the CEO, 150% to 200% of the fixed remuneration. The policy for ASA is that the maximum we don't encourage short term incentives that much, we want to see most of them put in the long term incentive, but the maximum would be equal to the fixed remuneration, not twice the fixed remuneration.
As we understand the long term incentive, it's the opportunity is there to achieve the same amount as fixed remuneration in shares. We would certainly like to see that large incentive for short term measures to be moved to the long term incentive program and the short term reduced significantly, very significantly. Because even when at the short term incentive, you only had to reach the thresholds, you still get 50% of the award, which is twice fixed remuneration as we read it. So, we certainly accept the efforts and the results of Telstra and the reward to shareholders. We accept that. However, I just alert you that we will be looking at a lot closely at the remuneration program at Telstra over the next 12 months to try and get it in alignment with the policies of ASA. Thank you.
CATHERINE LIVINGSTONE:
Thank you, Mr (UNKNOWN). The matters you raise actually relate to the next agenda item, but nonetheless, let's address them now. In our remuneration framework, we actually place a significant emphasis on the incentive pay. And that's why. So, for the CEO's remuneration, Mr Thodey's fixed remuneration will actually be kept constant for the third year in a row. No increase in the fixed remuneration because we believe that the rewards should be through the incentive remuneration, both this short term incentive and the long term incentive. So, that's why we set the CEO's remuneration at the 50th percentile for the reference group, which you see ASX 20. Other organisations pay a fixed remuneration at a higher percentile level. And in terms of our short term incentive, there is a longer-term dimension to that because 25% of the short term incentive is deferred into Telstra shares, which they invest at 12 months and 24 months after the actual earning of the short term incentive. So, the executives are exposed to the share price for a further two years after the short term incentive award being made.
So, that's how we link the short term and the long term if you like. But the way the remuneration is structured, the emphasis is on the incentive pay not on the fixed remuneration. So, if I could go to microphone one, please?
SPEAKER:
Chairman, we'd like to welcome back (UNKNOWN) for another question. Thank you, Madam Chairman. I should just indicate that to both John and to Peter and to yourself that all the votes that I carry who voted for you people.
CATHERINE LIVINGSTONE:
Thank you.
SPEAKER:
Ladies and gentlemen, I just want to say this in respect of our CEO David Thodey who when he came to the company and I told you that what our share price was. And he stood there and he told mum and dad shareholders, as well as the institutional shareholders what he was going to do and there would be pain and there was pain. He never, as I said, buried his head in the sand and he's always been willing. You think about the asbestos in the pits. He never buried his head in the sand. I mean, the CEO understands and gets the picture. He never took us to (UNKNOWN) like half the other CEOs, brickworks coal mining companies? What more? The CEO understands the business, and that's clearly evident in the shareholder return and the share price from what it was when he started to where it is now. And he never gets up there and praises himself. He always says there's more to do. And at every meeting I've ever been to representing other people, they're the words that comes out of his mouth, he's humble.
He's gracious. And it's the people that he brings along with him that makes the organization great. Thank you.
CATHERINE LIVINGSTONE:
Thank you very much, Mr (UNKNOWN), and I'll take those comments as being in supportive of the resolution. I think there are there are no other questions. Sorry. Microphone one.
SPEAKER:
Chairman, welcome back (UNKNOWN). Thank you for this. I've been looking at my (UNKNOWN). And on Page 54 it shows that (UNKNOWN) is reasonably well-compensated, 8 million this year and almost 9 million last year. I don't really got the year before that. Well, I happen to think he's doing a fabulous job. I happen to think that Telstra has improved out of sight because I've been a customer since the PMG days. I mean, I really do know what improvement means. I can remember trying to get a phone when telecom was running things. I mean, gee. So, yes, Telstra is doing well. But what do you do with $8 million a year? And on top of that, why do you need a million performance rights at, say, six bucks a share? Another 6 million as an incentive? And on top of that again, I'm quite sure David Thodey would come and do his job, as would any other of the senior management team if there was no long term incentive at all because they like doing it. When I worked in the corporate environment, admittedly never for a company quite as big as Telstra...
MAXWELL:
We had a very effective short-term incentive. And the short-term incentive was do your job, or it don't come Monday. I can't see the point of short-term incentives at all for senior executives. They either do the job because they like doing it, and they're competent. But they don't need short-term incentive. Long-term incentives, sure, fine. So, if you were to kill the short-term incentive for all of them, not just David Thodey, and then restructure the long-term incentives so that there was a lot more at risk, that would make more sense. But this Rich C scheme you've got, and on top of that, another, five million, I don't understand what are you gonna do with all that money? (AUDIENCE CLAPPING)
SPEAKER:
Mr. Maxwell, thank you for your observations. I think through our remuneration report, we've tried to be very transparent in terms of the structure of the remuneration, as well as the reasons for having that structure. And we are constantly having to make sure that we retain and attract very senior talent into this business, and therefore we have to have regard to the market and the remuneration structures that are available as options to the people that we wish to attract. We believe we do have a very competitive remuneration structure in terms of being able to attract and retain people. And we have, as I said, balanced it so that we have as much in terms of incentive pay versus the fixed remuneration. And in both the short term and the long term incentive, there is ongoing exposure to the Telstra share price, which means that the interests of executives and the interests of shareholders are aligned through that exposure. But we note your comments. I don't think we have any more questions on that item, so we have now finalized our discussion on Item 4, and the proxy and direct voting position is being shown on the slide behind me.
As indicated in the notice of meeting, I intend to vote all available proxies in favour of the grant of the performance rights to the CEO. So, if you could fill out your voting cards for item 4 at this stage. I now turn to item 5 on today's agenda, which is to consider and, if thought fit, pass the following resolution as an ordinary resolution. That the Remuneration Report for the year ended 30 June 2014 be adopted. The vote on this item is advisory only. However, the board will take the outcome of the vote into consideration when reviewing our remuneration practices and policies. And, for example, as a result of the feedback at last year's AGM, we have improved the clarity of reporting of short-term and long-term incentive outcomes. As I've tried to indicate in my just earlier comments, the governance of remuneration outcomes remains a key focus for the board and for the remuneration committee. We do regularly review our policies to ensure that the remuneration for our executives continues to be aligned with company performance, that it supports our business strategy, and reinforces our culture and our values.
At the same time, we provide market competitive remuneration to attract, motivate and retain highly skilled people, thus creating sustainable value for Telstra and our shareholders. The overall structure and philosophy of our approach to remuneration remained constant throughout 2014. As you've heard this morning, Telstra delivered strong financial results in the 2014 financial year. These results were underpinned by progress against our key strategic priorities, including continued growth in customer numbers and improvements in customer service and productivity. This serves to reinforce our position as a leading telecommunications and technology company. But I'd like to comment on a few of the specific items in terms of our remuneration structure and outcomes. As I've said, the CEOs fixed remuneration was not increased during FY14, as it is close to the median of the ASX 20 CEO positions. And this was always the target that we set right from the time when Mr. Thodey was appointed as CEO in 2009.
Total reported remuneration for the CEO decreased from 8.8 million to 8.2, primarily due to a lower short-term incentive outcome in the 2014 financial year. For the 2014 financial year, all our senior executives participated in the same short-term incentive, or STI plan, with the exception of our group executive wholesale, for whom the STI reflects regulatory requirements. The performance measures of the plan were free cash flow, EBITDA, total income, our customer advocacy net promoter score, and individual performance objectives. The board selected these performance measures as it believes they're a critical link between achieving the outcomes of our business strategy and increasing our shareholder value. For FY 14, the STI outcomes for senior executives was an average of 53.6% of the maximum opportunity, and that was based on the assessment of financial, customer, and individual performance. This outcome reflects Telstra's strong financial performance, but also that we did not achieve our customer advocacy target, notwithstanding that our advocacy score improved across all customer segments.
So, that portion of the STI, and it's a significant portion, that was attributed to the net promoter score, was awarded zero short-term incentive. Turning to the long-term incentive or LTI outcomes, the performance period for the FY12 LTI plan concluded on the 30th of June 2014, 78.15% of the performance rights vested in the form of restricted shares for this plan. There were two performance measures, relative total shareholder return and free cash flow return on investment. In terms of the relative shareholder return, Telstra ranked at the 95th percentile of the global peer group over the three-year performance period. There was also above target performance on free cash flow return on investment measured over the same three-year performance period. The shares allocated to executives under this plan are subject to a further 12 month restriction period, which ends in August 2015. Consistent with prior years, the board determined outcomes relating to both the STI and the LTI to ensure that there were no windfall gains or losses due to the timing of the NBN rollout or spectrum purchases, as well as acquisitions and divestments, including CSL and Census.
In particular, I want to note that the profit and the cash received on the sale of our Hong Kong Mobile Business, CSL, was excluded in determining these outcomes. And finally, in respect of non-executive director remuneration, there was no increase in board or committee fees in the 2014 financial year. So the board recommends that shareholders vote in favour of the adoption of the remuneration report, and I'll now invite any questions on this item. Microphone 4. Chairman, I would like to introduce Michael Waterhouse.
MICHAEL WATERHOUSE:
Thank you. I'd like to commend Telstra on the efforts they've gone to, to be transparent with the whole remuneration program. And I'd like to make a couple of comments around some of the detail of it. It's interesting that you use the ASX evaluation to determine the base salary and its median comparing your fixed remuneration, and then from that, your multiples is what you use for incentive programs. However, when you come to total shareholder value, you take the 23 companies from around the world, which represent Telstra type companies. And you note that you were 96% achievement today. In other words, you're almost at the top of the tree. I wonder whether you're at the top of the tree if you use the ASX200. If you're gonna use it for one, would you not use it for the other? The reason I ask that question is because Telstra has a legacy from its history. Like a lot of the 23 companies you're using as a peer group, in other words, there have been a monopoly situation, government-owned, et cetera, and regulatory, confined or protected, whichever way you wanna look at it, for many, many years and have built those systems and rights of ways, et cetera.
While a lot of those things have been replaced by technology, the rights of ways is what is giving you a lot of revenue in terms of NBN, particularly as one example. So, I wonder, given the different regimes, regulatory regimes, government policies, etc., of the 23 peer group that you're using to compare for total shareholder return. I wonder if you pick out probably half a dozen of those which are in a much equal competitive environment that we have here in Australia and has the legacy that is equivalent to what you have here, and compare those as the core of the peer group and leave the other 20 or 16 or 18 fall into the background so we can look at the 23, but also pull out the likes of Bell Canada, Sprint, AT&T and pull them out and directly compare them, so that their average is not washed out by the mediocre.
SPEAKER:
Thank you, Mr. Waterhouse. So, just commenting, first of all, in terms of the reference group for the shareholder return versus remuneration. The reason we use the peer group that we do and the global peer group is because we expect our executives and our senior leadership team to be doing better than the peer group in terms of the strategies available to telecommunications businesses today, and it is a global business. And as you've heard, we're participating increasingly on a global basis. So in terms of the incentive, we're trying to provide the incentive to our executives to build shareholder value. And we have as a reference point the strategies that other telcos around the world are using. In terms of selecting out individual or a smaller group of those telcos. In fact, the executives and David visit those telcos, and we as a board also meet when we travel overseas. There's no one model for a telco, and even looking at its heritage and its legacy, and we actually try to learn from all of them and apply the strategies to our own business.
But we look to find the best that there is and apply it to us. So, there's no one or even a small group of global peers whom we regard as exactly analogous with our business because telcos have developed so differently in every country because, as you say, of the regulatory environment and the technology. So that's why we use that global peer group reference. I think there are no other questions on this item. So we've now finalized discussion, and the proxy and direct voting position is being shown on the slide behind me. As indicated in the notice of meeting, I intend to vote all available proxies on this item in favour of the adoption of the remuneration report. So please fill out your voting cards for item five. Shareholders that concludes our discussion of each item on today's agenda, and if you haven't already done so, please complete your voting card and place it in one of the ballot boxes, which the attendants will be carrying throughout the room or in one of the boxes at the exits to the room.
The poll will remain open for a further 15 minutes to enable everyone to cast their votes. And as I said, the results of the poll will be available later today on our website and the ASX. So can I thank you all very much for your attendance today? It's been a pleasure to be in Queensland, and the board is here for another few days for its board meetings. But we're delighted to have been here, and can I thank you all for coming to the AGM and also thank those who viewed the AGM online. So, all items of business having been considered, I now declare the meeting closed and invite you to join us for lunch. Thank you very much. (AUDIENCE CLAPPING)
The 2013 AGM of Telstra Corporation Limited was held on Tuesday 15 October 2013 at 9.30am (AEDT) in Sydney.
The 2012 AGM of Telstra Corporation Limited was held on Tuesday 16 October 2012 at 9.30am (AEDT) at the Melbourne Exhibition Centre.
The 2011 Telstra Corporation Limited AGM was held on Tuesday 18 October 2011 commencing at 10.00am (Sydney time) at the Sydney Convention and Exhibition Centre.
The 2010 Telstra Corporation Limited AGM was held on Friday 19 November 2010 at the Melbourne Convention Centre.
The 2009 Telstra AGM was held on Wednesday 4 November in the Bayside Auditorium at the Sydney Convention and Exhibition Centre, Darling Harbour, Sydney.