Medibank Private Limited (MPL) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, everyone. My name is Mike Wilkins. And on behalf of the Board of Directors of Medibank, I'd like to welcome you to our 2023 Annual General Meeting. I'd like to invite Wurundjeri elder, Perry, to join us to open today's proceedings with a welcome to Country. Thank you, Perry.

Thank you. I haven't said anything yet but thank you, anyway. Good morning, everybody, and Wominjeka welcome. My name is Perry Wandin, Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung Elder, proud to stand here really in my father's shoes because he was our last [Foreign Language], meaning the head man and it was passed down from a lot of major, major, major, very strong aboriginal people. But firstly, I'd like to acknowledge all my ancestors, elders, both past, present and emerging, all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. My story is for those, I live in Healesville, and that is virtually where the Wandin family are still are. My grandfather walked off the mission to go to World War I and come back and go for that. And he wasn't allowed back on the mission because the mission was put in place 1863, 1924 from being 35 men, women and children. And cholera had just about wiped out everybody with the common cold. But from that till 1924, 424 aboriginal people, but it wasn't just only our mob, it was all the mobs that were virtually coming into Melbourne, wondering what's going on. Not all of it was work but they were gathered up and put in not only Coranderrk, but the other 4 in Victoria. So -- and William Barrick would probably be the most prolific aboriginal leader. He is my great, great, great uncle. And he was able to sort of fight the government in ways to challenge their laws, not aboriginal law, of course. But to get a better meaning of life and it ended up being shut down in 1924. Most of my family are 3 members. My grandfather and his 2 sisters both stayed, married other men. And we are what we are today. So the rest of our 7, my grandfather's siblings were shipped down to Lake Tyers at lake's entrance. And a big community down there. And I love going back to -- and that's my second home, and it's great to catch up with all the family down there because actually, it's quite funny. Because my father when he was 30 married an English woman. I get sunburned, I got freckles, I got everything. So are the kids and the grandkids. But to walk down there and they've married into other aboriginal people. And it's got -- they're just out of this world. And I mean it because the [ Ngadadjara ] people are wonderful. They welcome you with open arms. And like I said, it's my second home. With my father. My father was the last to be born at [ Kawenderk ] in 1933, but it did shut down in 1924. [ Granny Jemima ] were doomed because that was the family name. And if anyone gets up there in the [ era ] valley, the town Wandin's named after my great grandfather. I played football against those mongrels because I played for Healesville. I hated their guts. And a couple of finals. Anyway, I won't go there. And as I was saying, my father was born in 1933, and there was a reason. [Granny Jemima-Burns ] was still allowed to stay on the property from 1924 to 1942 -- '43, sorry. She passed away 103. So there was a good reason. Then father came along. Became the first aboriginal player to play for St Kilda. Hello? Any St Kilda supporters? One, two. Well, that's about it on average. Every time I go somewhere, but what is wrong? They're beautiful colors: black, red and the white. I was going to say black and white, I don't like them mongrels, but sorry about that, everybody. But anyway, like I was saying, my father was the last [Foreign Language], and he's been past now for 17 years. We've had no one replace it and we really don't want because there's too much family connection with it. No, it should be this one, it should be that one. So we haven't worried about it. As you see, I'll just explain what's going on today. I don't like this title Uncle. I believe that's before me. I'm the person who's just gathering information and passing it on for everyone to know the knowledge of our history and how we are today. So I thank you very much for allowing, and I hope the AGM goes really well because -- and don't forget everybody more questions you asked, that means the more work they got to do. So -- and please, please more questions. So Wominjeka, welcome. [Foreign Language], meaning welcome to the land of Wurundjeri people and the Willam-Balluk is us. We are the last clan. So thank you again, and I hope you have a great AGM, and thank you for your time.

Well, thanks, Perry, for that very warm welcome to Country. Well, I'm not sure about the comments about questions, but we'll see how people feel about that as we go forward. Perry, I'd also like to thank you for the work that you and the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung Cultural Heritage of Aboriginal Corporation are doing with Medibank, teaching us to respect country and to respect each other. We recognize Australia's traditional owners and their continuing connection to country. And I respectfully acknowledge the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung peoples of the Kulin nation on whose lands we meet this morning, and I pay my respects to elders past, present and emerging. I'd also like to extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples joining us today. As was the case last year, today's meeting is being held in a hybrid format. I'd like to thank all shareholders for joining us today, whether you're joining us virtually through our live stream or here with us in the room. I now formally declare the meeting open. The notice of meeting has been sent to shareholders, and I'll take it as read. Joining me on stage today is the Medibank Board of Directors, and I'd like to introduce them to you. On your far left, my far right, is Linda Nicholls, who is the Chair of the Investment and Capital Committee, followed by Peter Everingham. Sitting next to Peter is Dr. Tracey Batten, who is Chair of the Board's People and Remuneration Committee and also standing for reelection today. And of course, sitting next to Tracey is our Chief Executive Officer, David Koczkar. On your far right, my far left is Anna Bligh, who will be retiring as a Director at the conclusion of this meeting. Anna is sitting next to David Fagan, who is Chair of the Risk Management Committee. Sitting next to David is Kathryn Fagg, followed by Gerard Dalbosco, who's Chair of the Audit Committee. Finally, to your immediate right is our Company Secretary, Mei Ramsay. At this stage of the meeting, I'd like to briefly run through some procedural details. For those attending virtually, if you experience any technical difficulties during the meeting, please call the number on your screen. A recording will also be available on our website after the meeting. If the AGM needs to be adjourned at any time due to technical or other reasons, we'll provide further instructions and information on our website and on the ASX. To provide shareholders the greatest possible opportunity to vote, I now formally open the polls on all resolutions other than Resolution 2, which relates to my reelection as a director. I also now formally cast all votes for proxies I hold on all resolutions other than Resolution 2 in accordance with the directions provided by shareholders or as set out in the notice of meeting. I now ask Gerard Dalbosco, Chair of our Audit Committee, to take the chair, as he's entitled to do under Medibank's constitution, for the purpose of opening the poll on Resolution 2 and casting all directed proxy votes held by the Chair of the meeting on that resolution. Gerard?

Thank you, Mike. In my capacity as Chair of that part of the meeting relating to Resolution 2, I direct that the poll on Resolution 2 to be open now and that it be closed the same time as the polls on all other resolutions are closed in accordance with the Chair's direction. I also now formally cast all votes for proxies I hold on Resolution 2 in accordance with the directions provided by shareholders or as set out in the notice of meeting. I'll now pass the chair back to Mike.

Thanks, Gerard. I'll provide more detailed instructions regarding voting and the asking of questions later in the meeting. What I'd like to do now is to reflect on our financial year 2023 performance and then to ask David to address the meeting as well and to give his comments. Throughout 2023, we remain focused on the needs of our customers in the way we responded to the challenging economic environment, rising cost of living or to the cybercrime event. As a result of this focus, we delivered a solid financial result with momentum returning to our health insurance business, strong underlying profit growth of Medibank Health and our capital position remains strong. Resident policyholder growth got back on track and our nonresident business recorded its highest growth in 7 years. For the first time in our almost 50-year history, we ended the 2023 financial year with more than 4 million customers whose health and wellbeing we're supporting. We've continued managing the business well and our management expense ratio remains one of the lowest in the market. At a group level, net profit after tax was up 29.8% to $511.1 million, including net investment income of almost $139 million. We remain well capitalized. And in line with this, shareholders received a fully franked final ordinary dividend of $0.083 per share, which brought our full year dividend $0.146 per share fully franked and that was an increase of 9%. The impact of the cybercrime event that we experienced in October last year was significant for our organization and for all of our stakeholders. Since that time, we've worked hard to reestablish the trust of all of those stakeholders. One year on, we know we can still do more as we continue to apply the lessons that we've learned. The Board has been overseeing a group-wide program of work that aims to continue uplifting and embedding the technology, processes and security culture within Medibank to support our customer promise of being a trusted health partner. We continue to work collaboratively with APRA in response to its decision to apply an additional capital adequacy requirement of $250 million on Medibank from the 1st of July of this year until we meet key remediation milestones. We're already well progressed on our uplift activities, and we've been sharing updates on this work with APRA, including the work already completed. The regulatory investigation by the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner is also progressing, and we continue to cooperate with the OAIC. We're also responding to 3 representative claims. These claims are in their early stages of orders carefully monitoring their progress. I'd like to thank the Australian government, including the Australian Signals Directorate, the Australian Cybersecurity Center and the Australian Federal Police with whom we continue to work closely. The investigation into the cybercrime by the relevant authorities is ongoing. Recognizing the expectations of our customers, our shareholders and the community more generally for there to be meaningful consequences as a result of the cybercrime, the Board determined the executive leadership group would receive 0 short-term incentives for the 2023 financial year. In addition, there have been 0 increases in fixed remuneration for our CEO, David Koczkar and your Board of Directors for the 2024 financial year. As you would expect, the Board also reviewed Medibank's remuneration frameworks to enhance its focus on our customers and to ensure we meet APRA's new remuneration standard, CPS 511. Key changes include the introduction of a customer service satisfaction measure into the short-term incentive plan, a new brand sentiment performance hurdle in our long-term incentive plan, and longer deferral periods on variable remuneration for the executive leadership group. The Board also recently undertook its annual review of the group's risk appetite and approach to managing risk as we look to achieve our strategic ambitions. This incorporated a review of our progress towards the implementation of APRA's new operational risk standards, CPS 230, that comes into effect in 2025. It also incorporated global concerns identified as being key risks to Australia's economy such as geopolitical instability, cyber threats, climate change and technology such as artificial intelligence. We've been focused on the increasing financial pressure felt by many households as ongoing inflation, rising interest rates, housing concerns and subdued economic growth contribute to uncertain economic times. While the private health insurance industry is expected to remain resilient, the affordability challenges facing our customers and the wider community means that delivering greater value is even more important. David will detail our response to these challenges during his address to the meeting. Health care inflation is also adding to the significant challenges impacting Australia's health care system. Demand for health care is growing as our population ages and chronic disease becomes more prevalent with people facing even longer wait times in the public system for both primary and hospital care. Today, around 25% of the Australian government's budget is directed to health, age-related pensions, and aged care. By 2050, this is expected to rise to around 50% with rising health costs the biggest contributor. As a health company, we believe Medibank has an important role to lead change to better support our customers' health by strengthening our Medibank and ahm brand offerings while also making our health system more sustainable by improving access to the quality health care that we all enjoy. We've been at the forefront of championing innovation in the sector through Medibank Health and in particular, our Amplar Health business, investing in prevention and new care settings, which are both better for our customers and crucial to transforming health both now and for the future. To strengthen our private health proposition, this year, more than 16,000 of our health insurance customers enrolled in one of our 9 prevention programs in areas such as osteoarthritis or heart disease. Our short-stay no-gap network now stands at 34 hospitals. And in the last year alone, almost 1 in 3 of our health insurance customers having a joint replacement opted to have rehabilitation at home. And in the public system, we're working with hospitals, doctors and governments to give people greater access and choice while taking pressure off a strained health system such as the free 24/7 health support service for New South Wales North Coast residents, hospital-level home care in Adelaide or the virtual psychology program offered through our Myhealth GP network. So it's heartening to see more providers embrace home care and virtual health offerings alongside of us. Equity and health and wellbeing outcomes remains a fundamental part of our vision to achieve the best health and wellbeing for Australia. We've got a long-standing commitment to reconciliation and helping to close the gap that exists between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and others in Australia. We've seen firsthand the value within our business and across the health sector is structures that seek to address these issues. In the lead up to the voice referendum, we saw an opportunity to encourage people to listen and learn so as to understand what the referendum was asking. We took steps to ensure that our people were informed about the position of both sides of the debate and able to participate in a respectful discussion. Our role wasn't about encouraging people to vote in a certain way. I can also confirm that Medibank did not make a financial contribution to either side of the referendum debate. The referendum result doesn't stop us from listening to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander voices on matters that concern their communities nor our focus on supporting the health and wellbeing of First Nations people and the wider Australian community. Our work to embrace and promote diversity and inclusion in our workplace and our community more generally was recognized by Equileap's Gender Equality Index, where we placed 3rd worldwide and 2nd in Australia, and by the Australian Network on Disability 2022-23 Access and Inclusion Index. We've also made progress on our net zero commitment, including developing a strategy for transitioning to 100% renewable electricity and beginning research into the environmental impact of preventative health delivered through new care settings. Further detail on our sustainability approach can be found in our 2023 sustainability report, which is available on our website. While 2023 has presented some significant challenges for our company, we've emerged as a stronger business, one that's more resilient and even more deeply committed to our purpose of better health for better lives. This is a tribute to the hard work and dedication of all of our people, whom I thank on behalf of the Board and on behalf of you, our shareholders. I'd also like to recognize the leadership of David Koczkar and the executive team during this last 12 months and to acknowledge my fellow Board directors for their ongoing wise counsel and support. As you know, today marks Anna Bligh's retirement from our Board after 11 years. Anna brought a unique set of skills to the Board and her wisdom and experience has been integral to Medibank's transformation from a government-owned entity to where we are today. And I'd like to thank you, Anna, for your support and significant contribution over this time. We're well underway in our search to replace Anna. As we look to the year ahead, our focus remains on supporting our customers, continuing to develop our people and helping our community as we work to deliver the best health and wellbeing for Australia. Thank you to all of our shareholders who share this vision with us and enable us to do what we do. I'd now like to ask David to provide an update on Medibank's strategy, direction and our current performance. David.

Thank you, Mike, and good morning to everyone joining us in the room here today and on the webcast. I want to begin by acknowledging the traditional owners and custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community and pay my respects to their elders past, present and emerging. This morning, I want to say a few words on the past year before I turn to the current operating environment and then share some comments on the outlook. Despite the challenges over the past year, we have remained focused on our customers, first and foremost. We have continued to support and protect the people impacted by the cybercrime event last year, and I want to call out the incredible response by our people over this time. This includes the teams who stood up our cyber response support program so quickly to provide mental health and wellbeing support, identity protection and financial hardship measures to people impacted by this crime. As Mike said, we have remained focused on our cyber uplift program and have worked hard to regain the customers' trust. Despite the impact of the cybercrime and challenges in the economy, we closed out FY '23 with momentum returning to our business and delivered a solid result for shareholders. Resident policyholder growth was up 0.6% or almost 11,000 policies driven by families, younger people and those taking up cover for the first time. And pleasingly, our key customer advocacy measures had also returned to pre-cybercrime levels. We have continued to grow over the past 4 months, adding 5,200 policyholders in what is increasingly a very competitive market. In our nonresident business, we recorded 40% policy unit growth in FY '23. And we've continued to see growth in this segment, reflecting our dual brand strategy, ongoing investment in our proposition and strong delivery of our health and wellbeing services, particularly in the student market. As I've said before, we remain disciplined in our approach to growth. We know that establishing longer-term relationships with customers, supporting them in their health as they move through their life stages, is better for our customers and also better for the sustainability of our business. We have a unique position in the market that sets us apart from others. Our Medibank and ahm brands provide customers with a differentiated offering in health insurance. And our Medibank Health businesses continue to expand their reach, providing both products and services to our insurance companies that strengthen our private health insurance proposition and also delivering health services in the community alongside our government and health partners. Further to Mike's comments, we recognize the financial pressure that many households are under. With this pressure that persists for some time, we know the onus is on us to offer value that our customers can see and feel today while still investing to change the way health can be delivered into the future. And while we as a business are not immune to the impacts of a tightening economy, we remain well positioned to navigate through it. People are continuing to prioritize their health and wellbeing. The ongoing challenges in the public system have only amplified this. The latest Ipsos data shows that the proportion of people viewing private health insurance as essential is the highest it has been since 2015. I sit in on customer conversations regularly, and that sentiment is coming through there, too. This is not to say that cost of living concerns haven't emerged. They have but customers are more likely to cut back on discretionary areas of spending like entertainment, dining out on holidays rather than drop their health cover. Industry data reflects this, too, with June showing the 12th consecutive quarter of growth. The industry also saw the highest growth in customers with hospital cover under 30 in a decade. With 25 to 29 year olds, growing the most in terms of hospital lives covered, both helped by adult dependent reforms that allow many young people to stay on their parents' cover until they turn 31. The Ipsos data also shows a positive shift in attitudes of young singles and young couples who are seeing private health insurance as increasingly essential. This remains good news for the sustainability of the sector. And while we continue to see strong growth in the market, we anticipate the operating environment will become more challenging as cost of living pressures persist. And while we expect to see some signs of moderation in APRA's quarterly data to be released today, resident industry growth still remains well above pre-pandemic levels. Despite household budgets being squeezed, we are not seeing any meaningful shift in people dropping their cover or downgrading. What we are seeing is people seeking more value from their health insurer wanting their dollar to go further. And we know value means different things to different people, but we know that for all of our customers, this starts with their premiums. We continue to work hard to keep premiums as low as possible with our average 2.9% increase in 2023, well below headline inflation and significantly under increases in other areas such as housing, transport, the weekly grocery shop and utility bills. Our customers have also seen money return to their bank accounts. Our latest COVID cash back hit bank accounts last month, taking our total support to date to $1.15 billion. We continue to monitor claims activities and will return any permanent net claim savings due to COVID back to customers. In recent months, we've started to see softness in some extras claiming, although surgical claims have largely rebounded back to pre-COVID levels. And while trends in nonsurgical claims remain below expectations, some of which is structural like we've seen in rehab, affordability challenges persist. So as we emerge from the pandemic, every part of the health sector needs to continue to think differently. As a key example, our hospital agreements are there to ensure our customers can access the quality care they need. But this cannot come at any cost, and we have a responsibility to act on our customers' behalf to ensure that care remains affordable. Our evolving relationships with hospitals and in particular, the partnership models we have been building, are key to this. These partnerships create alignment to drive innovation, to embrace different approaches in new care settings that take unnecessary costs out of the health system. But each part of the health system has a responsibility to manage its own costs especially given rising inflation to minimize the flow and impact to customers. And in the current environment, this has been more important than ever. This continues to be a focus for us having removed more than $100 million of our own management expenses over the last 6 years. These productivity savings have helped us maintain one of the lowest management expense ratios in the resident health insurance market across both for-profit and not-for-profit funds. But notwithstanding this, we have continued to invest in the differentiation of our 2 brands, supported by our Medibank Health businesses, which are providing more value to customers through our products and services, enabling us to better serve them in the current environment. As an example, it's someone having a knee replacement and saving an average of $1,600 in out-of-pocket costs through our no-gap network. For a family, it is each member getting 100% back on up to 2 dental checkups each year through their Members' Choice Advantage dentists. This network saved customers more than $25 million in out-of-pocket costs last year. For another customer, value can be earning Live Better reward points to cut $200 off their premium or receive additional extra treatments. We also know that value comes from making it easy for customers to deal with us. With a significant shift towards digital channels, our digital spend is almost 5x the size it was 5 years ago. We have continued to invest in the experience of our customers when they use their cover, but also to connect them to services in health. More and more Medibank customers are looking to us to help them reach their health and wellbeing goals with almost 1/3 engaging with one of our health offerings last year. In our resident business, virtual health interactions grew 30% while virtual consults for nonresident and corporate customers were up 163%. And over the same time, our Amplar Health team provided more than 1.6 million virtual health interactions to our customers and to the community. While we are seeing some positive change in the health sector, we know there is more we all need to do. The latest intergeneration report paints picture of Australia over the next 40 years, with spending on health to rise significantly as the population ages and with an increasing burden of chronic conditions, it is sobering reading. But it also points to opportunities to get in front of the issues now, to evolve as our customers and community evolve and to rethink the status quo. As a company, we have already made this important shift to expand the ways we support our customers in health and to innovate to support the long-term sustainability of the health system. And that includes continuing to invest in prevention to support our customers' health and well-being. The number of Live Better members grew 34% last year to almost 700,000, continuing to making it one of the leading health and wellbeing programs in the country. And with around half of Australians living with at least one chronic health condition for more than a decade, we have delivered programs to support the needs of these customers. Last year, we enrolled 16,000 customers in one of our prevention programs, which saw both improvements in the Net Promoter Scores and also save the equivalent of around 55,000 hospital bed days. And now through our investment in Myhealth and its 108 GP clinics across Australia, we are working with their teams to pilot a new approach to supporting patients who live with complex and chronic health conditions. We also continue to invest in new care models across both the public and private systems. In mental health, for example, we're challenging the traditional one-size-fits-all approach in the private system, introducing an innovative model of care that focuses on supporting patients outside of hospital just as much as in it. Through our joint venture with Aurora Healthcare, we have invested in 3 new mental health hospitals with the first site in Canberra already operating. Then there is My Home Hospital, a virtual hospital in South Australia that our Amplar Health team has delivered in partnership with Calvary on behalf of the state government since 2021. This service saved more than 19,000 hospital bed days in the public system last year and has just reached the milestone of caring for 10,000 patients. As one of the first stand-alone virtual hospitals in Australia accredited to deliver acute care, it has enormous possibilities elsewhere as jurisdictions across the country are grappling with the mounting health care challenges ahead and the finite resources to address them. To help challenge the status quo in health sector, we are also reinventing the way we work. Our people remain engaged around Medibank's 2030 vision to create the best health and wellbeing for Australia. It's a bold vision. So we're asking them to experiment in the ways we can all achieve it. This includes an experiment to challenge the traditional work week with 250 of our people trialing a 4-day work week based on the 100-80-100 model. That is 100% of pay, 80% of working hours while maintaining 100% of productivity. These teams will challenge each other over the next 6 months to work smarter and remove unnecessary red tape, empowering them to focus on areas where they can make the greatest impact on our customers. In another experiment, our frontline customer teams are trialing an ultra-local approach to supporting our customers. So when a member in Geelong or Adelaide or the Gold Coast calls our contact center, it's now very likely they will speak to a team member who lives in the same region with true local knowledge of the health services in that area and who is actively involved in the community. As we look forward, there will be challenges, but there are also many opportunities for Medibank as we increase the support we provide our customers and expand our role in health to innovate and help sustain the system. Pleasingly, we entered FY '24 with good momentum, and our strategy continues to support our growth. We will continue to pursue growth opportunities in our target high-growth markets, building upon our investments in health and wellbeing, primary and virtual care and short-stay and community care. We also remain clear on who we will partner with and we will continue to remain disciplined in our expansion in health. Turning now to the outlook. There is no change to the FY '24 outlook that we presented at our full year results. On resident policyholders, our year-to-date net growth is 0.3% as at 31 October 2023. This includes the impact of the June 2023 premium review. Medibank Health growth momentum is in line with our FY '24 to FY '26 target. Our capital position also remains strong, and we continue to target between $150 million and $250 million in inorganic investment in Medibank Health. Productivity savings remain on track. Cybercrime costs also remain on track. Before I hand back to Mike, I want to thank the entire team across Medibank for their contribution throughout the year. It has not been without challenges but their passion for our customers and commitment to our vision has not wavered. I also want to recognize the executive leadership team for their support over the past year. Thank you, in particular, to Dr. Andrew Wilson, who recently made the decision to step away from the executive leadership team after 13 years and take on the key role of Group Chief Medical Officer. And of course, I would also like to thank you, our shareholders, for your ongoing support. I'll now hand back to Mike. Thank you.

Now I need to adjust these back to my size. Thanks, David. We've now reached the formal business of our meeting. As today's meeting is being held in person and virtually, I'll first run through the meeting procedures. As this is a shareholder meeting, only shareholders, their attorneys, proxies and corporate representatives may vote and ask questions. I'll now go through the voting procedures. Those of you present in person who are entitled to vote have been provided a handheld device to cast your vote. Instructions for how to vote using the devices are on the screen behind me. Your smart card should already be in the device and a list of resolutions should appear on your screen. Use the scroll wheel to highlight the resolution you wish to vote on, then press the green square. The selected resolution will then appear on your screen. Press the green square again and you'll see the voting options. To vote for the resolution, press 1. To vote against, press 2. and if you wish to abstain from voting, press 3. Once you've selected your voting option, you can move to the next resolution by pressing the green square or return to the full list of resolutions by pressing the red triangle. If you need any assistance, please raise your device and a Lumi representative will assist you. Now for those attending virtually. If you're eligible to vote, a voting icon will appear on your screen's navigation bar. Once you click on this icon, you'll see the resolutions on your screen. To cast your vote, select one of the options: for, against, or abstain for each resolution. Your selection will be highlighted and the vote is automatically recorded. There's no need to press or submit or -- an enter button. But you do have the ability to change your vote at any time until I declare the voting closed. There are 5 items of business before the company's meeting this morning. These are set out in the Notice of Meeting, which you would have received. items 2 to 5 are to be voted on and determined by a poll. As indicated earlier, the polls are open and I would encourage you to vote early. Medibank's share registry, Computershare, has given me a report of the proxy voting instructions received for items 2 to 5. As advised in the proxy form, open proxy votes held by me as Chair of the meeting on all resolutions other than Resolution 2, and by Gerard Dalbosco as Chair of the meeting on Resolution 2 have been cast in favor of each resolution. The indicative results of the proxies received on items 2 to 5 are now displayed on the screen behind me. The polls will close shortly before the end of this meeting, and I'll give you advance notice ahead of closing the voting. Later in the meeting, eligible persons attending in person and virtually will be given the opportunity to ask questions. For those attending in person today, you'll be entitled to ask a question if you hold a Lumi handheld device or a red card provided by Computershare. If you'd like to ask a question later in the meeting, I'll invite you to move to one of the 2 fixed microphones around the meeting room. However, for now, please remain in your seats. Now to those attending virtually. If you wish to submit a written question, click the messaging tab, which can be found on the navigation bar on your screen. At the top, there will be an area to type in your question. Once you finish typing your question, press the arrow symbol to send it to us. A copy of your submitted questions, along with any written responses from our meeting team, can be viewed by selecting my messages. I'll endeavor to address as many of the more frequently raised relevant questions and comments as possible during the course of the meeting, and I'll either answer or pass the question to the person most appropriate to answer. In the interest of time, we may need to summarize questions that are particularly lengthy or to moderate questions to avoid repetition. If you wish to ask an audio question, pick the request to speak button at the bottom of the broadcast window. You'll be redirected to a new page on which you'll be able to confirm your name and enter the topic of your question. Click submit request and then follow the on-screen instructions to grant access to your microphone, and you'll join the queue. If prompted, select allow in the pop-up to grant access to your microphone. You'll be introduced by the operator before you ask your question. While waiting in the queue, you'll still be able to hear the meeting. If you have a question about the virtual meeting or the virtual meeting technology, please contact the helpline that's now displayed on your screen. For those attending in person today, if you have any personal matters to discuss about your health insurance, please visit the information booth in the foyer and discuss this with a specialist adviser for either Medibank or ahm. For those attending virtually, please call 1-300-369-968 today until 6:00 p.m. Melbourne time to discuss personal matters regarding your health insurance. I promise it's not going to be a test on all of those instructions. Now let's move to the items of business. We'll now present all items of business and then provide an opportunity for questions after all items have been introduced. The first item of business is consideration of the financial statements and reports. This item isn't subject to a vote and therefore, doesn't require you to cast a vote. The Medibank financial statements for the year ended 30 June 2023, the directors' report and the auditor's report were released to the ASX and published in the annual report and on the company's website. We'll take questions on this item following the introduction of all items of business. In addition, the company's auditor, PricewaterhouseCoopers, is represented today in the room by Marcus Laithwaite, who is available to respond to questions about the conduct of the audit of the accounts. We'll now move to items 2 and 3, which are the reelection of Tracey Batten and myself as nonexecutive directors. As stated in the notice of meeting, under our constitution, Tracey and I retire at the end of this meeting, and being eligible, we offer ourselves for reelection. Neither Tracey nor I will be providing a formal address to the meeting today in relation to our reelection, but we will be available for questions during the discussion period later in the meeting. Each of my and Tracey's biographies is contained in the notice of meeting. Your Board, with each director standing for reelection and staining recommends unanimously that you vote for the reelection of each of us. Now moving to our fourth item of business, which relates to the remuneration report, which I put to the meeting in accordance with the Corporations Act. This resolution is to adopt the remuneration report for the year ended 30 June 2023. Medibank aims to reward executives fairly for delivering the company's strategy in a manner that meets community and customer expectation and delivers sustainable shareholder returns. The remuneration report provides extensive disclosure of director and executive remuneration and is set out on pages 54 to 73 of the annual report. Under the Corporations Act, this vote is advisory only. However, as directors, we give serious consideration to the voting results and the comments made upon this item when we review the company's remuneration policies. The Board recommends unanimously that you vote to adopt the remuneration report. Now turning to item 5. This resolution is to approve the grant of performance rights to David Koczkar, our Chief Executive, to be issued under Medibank's 2024 long-term incentive plan. Medibank's long-term incentive plans detailed in the remuneration report. It's designed to align the interest of the Chief Executive Officer with the interest of shareholders, and to this end, put a significant portion of his remuneration at risk. As previously mentioned, there's been some changes this year to the terms of the proposed performance rights to meet the regulatory requirements of APRA's new remuneration standard, CPS 511, and to further enhance our focus on our customers in our remuneration structure. The rights proposed to be granted are detailed in the notice of meeting, along with the vesting conditions and their corresponding weighting. This year, a new brand sentiment vesting condition, which applies to 20% of the total number of rights proposed to be granted has been set by the Board. It's important to understand that the performance rights only vest and become available for conversion to shares for the Chief Executive Officer on the achievement of performance hurdles, which are aligned to shareholder interests. If the performance hurdles are met at the end of the 3-year performance period, then the rights will vest. Any rights which vest will then be subject to a pre-exercise holding period of up to 3 years. Vested rights will be exercised automatically and convert to shares, which the Chief Executive Officer will receive equal annual tranches over that 3-year holding period. No dividends are paid on the rights. However, for the rights that are exercised, the Chief Executive Officer will be granted additional shares equal in value as determined by the Board to the dividends that would have been paid on the equivalent number of shares during the period between the vesting date and the relevant exercise date. Vested rights and shares granted remain subject to malus and clawback provisions, as outlined in the Notice of Meeting. The vesting outcome of the performance rights will be detailed in the remuneration report following the conclusion of the performance period on the 30th of June 2026. Any shares granted during the holding period will be detailed in the remuneration reports for the financial years ended on 30 June 2027 to 2029, inclusive. Your Board, other than David Koczkar, recommends unanimously that you vote in favor of this resolution. We've now introduced all items of business and we're ready to respond to questions. First, we'll begin with questions from the meeting room. If you hold a Lumi handheld device or a red card provided by Computershare and you'd like to ask a question, please make your way to 1 of the 2 fixed microphones around the room. At the microphone, please provide your name to the attendant and wait for them to introduce you by name to the meeting. Once you're introduced, please ask your question clearly into the microphone. [Operator Instructions] So I invite questions from the floor. And we have a question at microphone 2.

Chair, may I introduce Peter Aird, representing the Australian Shareholders Association.

Mr. Chairman, today, I represent proxies from 417 shareholders holding over 3 million shares. Just on the first issue. To enhance communication and ensure shareholders have the best opportunity to ask questions of the directors, ASA continues to believe that the AGM should follow the agenda rather than the arrangements that you have put in place for grouping the questions at the end of the meeting. I note that you've already made some comments about the remuneration report. Thank you. That was quite interesting and complete. I guess I would like to -- and I note that you have actually displayed the proxy votes for some time, so we were able to absorb that. So I would just like to ask, there's a significant vote against Dr. Batten, 24% or so. Would you like to comment on where this has come from and the reasons for that? And perhaps Dr. Batten would like to comment as well.

Thanks, Mr. Aird. I think Tracey makes a great contribution to Medibank, and she's certainly a very valued colleague that we have. And I'm disappointed that shareholders have chosen to vote against her reelection. But I recognize that this is actually sending a message to the Board about the cybercrime, and we acknowledge and understand that. As a Board, we are committed to Medibank's purpose and regaining the trust of our customers our shareholders and of all of our stakeholders, and Tracey remains an integral part of doing that. But as I said, we recognize that it's sending a message to the Board about the cyber event, and we take due note of that and acknowledge it.

Yes. Your personal vote remained very strong, I noticed. The other question I would have is with regard to the cybercrime event. Has there been an independent review of Medibank's response to the event in terms of timing, breadth and effectiveness?

There has been no independent review, but we have done a number of reviews internally about our response, and we've made a number of statements to the market more generally about the response as we have gone through that. In particular, we did talk about the cyber support program that we put in place for our customers and for those that were affected, which we felt was very important because, as you and I have discussed previously, Medibank starts with our customers, and we move out from there. So we have looked at the way in which that's played out. And importantly, we've also looked at what our customer satisfaction metrics are showing to us. And certainly that, combined with our brand reputation metrics, are getting very close to back to where we were pre the cyber event. We have a question on microphone 1.

Yes. Chair, may I introduce shareholder, Dr. [ Zenar Strauia ].

Thank you very much. And my question is very brief. My background is accounting, auditing. I understand your auditor is PwC, Pricewaterhouse and Coopers. As I understand from the media and from various kinds of sources, PwC has got a lot of challenges, a lot of issues relating to the auditing activities. Are you going to continue with PwC in the next financial year?

Short answer, yes, we are. Expanding a little bit on that, we feel that we have had a great service from our auditors, PwC, and we expect that, that will continue. The issues that you mentioned, the Board did take a great note of and move to actually satisfy ourselves that none of the individuals involved with our audit were also involved in the other matters that have affected PricewaterhouseCoopers. We also satisfied ourselves around the confidentiality of the information that we provide to the auditors. Given that, we feel that it's appropriate to continue with PwC as our auditors at this stage. However, we will continue to monitor the situation.

Yes. As a shareholder, I have been holding share since 2014, I'm not feeling very good about the way PwC is operating in their auditing assurance work.

Thank you. We were very satisfied with the audit work that is done for us. But as I said, we will continue to monitor that situation. We have a question from microphone 1.

Chair, may I introduce [ Ian Hamilton ], shareholder.

When you post out the notice of the meeting, you just sent a letter with the general details. And yet this form notice of annual meeting could only be picked up at the desk that has the map of the complex and where the meeting is and it should be sent out or more details on where the actual meeting is should be sent out because I noticed a number of people walking around saying, where is this room, where is it? It doesn't -- it's not obvious, like it's 800 meters from the front of the complex to the back. So it will be beneficial to send out more accurate details.

Thank you. We'll take note of that. Mei has taken a note of that.

You put up the percentage of the votes cast. What percentage of the total votes do these represent?

I think the answer is -- you're asking the total number of shares that actually...

You had like 90% for something 10% against. What total of the votes? Were 50% of the votes cast? Are some people not...

No. I think it's closer to 70% of the number of shares on issue actually voted.

So 30% didn't vote.

Yes, correct.

Okay. Or still can't vote?

Well, didn't vote. There are people in the room who will be able to cast the vote. So that number will move around a little bit, but it's of that order.

Okay. The government is currently undergoing a population explosion experiment in which 600,000 people -- new people to the country were brought in, in 1 year. This represents a one-off opportunity for you to have new business. And yet in the annual report, it said you grew resident policyholders by 11,000; 0.3%. You would need to contact these arrivals directly to explain the benefits of private health insurance and the risk of having none. When you look for new customers, you need young, healthy people who'll pay the money to be in the thing just in case they get sick. And when you have a lot of those people in it, you then make the profit out of them not making a claim. So you should really promote children's sport and health activities. And I noticed that you had a fun run. I think that was a good idea, too. Your employment experiment of working 4 days but paying for 5. Does this mean that unnecessary time wasters such as arriving late, leaving early, looking at your phone at work, looking at the window, talking to fellow employees, goofing off and all sorts of stuff like that, will these unnecessary time waste to be eliminated? And why aren't these people working at their full latent capacity already? And do you have working from home?

Yes, we do.

Is it supervised?

Productivity output is supervised. And as David mentioned in his discussion on our experiment for 250 people looking at the 4-day week. What we are looking for is 100% of pay for 80% of the working hours, but they must deliver at least 100% of the productivity. What we think will actually come from that will be greater productivity output as well as innovation as people look to eliminate some unnecessary steps, but also actually find better ways to do things. So we think it's a good experiment to undertake.

Does that include people that would take telephone inquiries?

Our customer service activities will continue to basically be available the hours that they are currently available to our customers, and we make sure that they are there because that interaction with our customers is very important. Just to -- for clarity as well, we will be keeping our branches open, the full amount of time that we also currently do. So it's a limited experiment to see how it works. If it works, we will probably look to extend it. If it doesn't work, we learn something.

With the dealings when people are working from home, when they're dealing with people over the phone and they're not supervised, no one can hear exactly what they say. And they could be like playing with a cat or watching TV or whatever. And also, and I've noticed this, when you tell people over the phone, and I assume they're working from home that the computer for the company they work for is wrong, they say something like you're being rude to me, or you're harassing me and hang up in your ear. Well, if their supervisor or someone was listening in, they'd say, what was all that about? But when you work from home, you can just cut some one off. And then the person who may have waited 20 minutes on the phone probably gives up.

Mr. [ Hamilton ], I disagree with that characterization of our staff. Generally speaking, our customer satisfaction levels and our service interaction measures are quite high after those service interactions that we have with our customers. I'm sure that there may be instances where customers are dissatisfied with that. But we do have monitoring services and other activities, including coaching that is available to those people. What we find is -- and there are some of our call center operators who do work from home. We find that, that flexibility that's afforded to them gives us greater loyalty from our people, but also enables us to actually be able to be spread more widely than if we were just limited to 1 or 2 traditional call centers.

Are all calls recorded?

I don't know the answer to that. David?

Yes. Well, subject to verifying if customers are comfortable with that. We do record phone calls. We provide, as Mike said, coaching. We listen to calls and provide quality assurance to ensure that we continue to learn from the calls. But as we see, as Mike mentioned, customer satisfaction, particularly through the call center is very strong. In fact, it continues to improve as we evolve our services. So as Mike said, this is about providing a great opportunity to attract and retain great people to support our customers. We think this is a great thing that's working for us at the moment.

Thank you. Okay. We have another question from microphone 2.

Chair, may introduce [ Lionel Watson], shareholder.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. As a shareholder of many companies, one of the issue I've been struggling was governance of the Board. I just want to hear your version of what you see the Board will move forward to make sure the governance is secure. There's a gentleman with PricewaterhouseCooper, which we know some issues related from that. But from a Board level, I just want to hear from you what is your policy of governance?

Well, Mr. [ Watson ], we believe that we have a very high standard of governance that is set out in our corporate governance statement, which is included in our annual report. It's something that the Board takes very seriously. We have also shown the commitment that the Board members have made in terms of participating in Medibank's meetings that's set out in our directors' report. We believe that governance is one of those things that continues to evolve. What we also do is to make sure that as that evolution is occurring, we get the appropriate training as a Board to understand that. So I don't know whether that's satisfying your question, but it's something that we all believe is important and is something that we continue to focus on.

So my next question would be then, and I'm a member of the Australian Institute of Directors. Have any people on the Board currently have been trained as directors?

Well, I think a number of us are members of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. You've seen my biography. I'm a fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. I think most of us have actually been there and done that training, and we have the continuing professional education obligations that come with that membership.

I do appreciate that. Not many Boards can answer that question.

Thank you. As there are no further questions from the floor, at the moment anyway, I'll move to written questions submitted in advance and during this meeting. Are there any written questions?

Question from Mr. [ Andrew Partridge] shareholder. When will you be considering a DRP?

Mr. [ Partridge ], thank you for your question. This is something the Board reviews on a regular basis. However, at this stage, we're not seeing sufficient demand for a DRP to justify us putting one in place, and we have no immediate plans to do so.

Chair, we have received similar questions from [ Paul ] and [ Helen Anders ] as well as RWM Super Proprietary Limited in relation to the voice referendum. One of those shareholders has asked, how much money has been spent on support to the voice to Parliament Yes campaign? And how is this in the best interest of all shareholders, half of whom do not support this proposition? Why does the Board of Medibank think it should put out any statement of support for a decision that is to be made by individual electors, not corporations?

Well, thank you for the question. But I think I actually addressed that question quite comprehensively during my earlier remarks. But to reiterate that, Medibank did not make a contribution to either side of the voice referendum debate, nor did we actually put out a public statement saying that we supported one side or the other. What we attempted to do was to ensure that our people were informed about both sides of the debate so that they could participate in a respectful discussion but we recognize that any decision about how they would vote was theirs, and we did not seek to influence how anyone voted.

Chair, shareholders, [ Malcolm ] and [ Karen Roberts ] ask, will you confirm that Medibank will not in the future support in any way, social issues on which the community is divided and concentrate on its core business only?

Well, that's a really difficult question because I think it becomes situational. David and I have both talked about the fact that Medibank is about trying to improve the health and wellbeing of our nation and is also looking at new forms of care. If that becomes controversial, but if we think that it's in the best interest of our shareholders, and we think that it's in the best interest of the nation, then I reserve the right for Medibank to actually make comment on those things. So I don't think I can make that commitment because, as I said, I think it becomes situational.

Chair, from shareholder [ Emily Cross ]. What is Medibank Company doing to protect its customers from being further inconvenienced by hackers using our robbed information from being used against us? What measures have you put in place? Please explain in plain language.

Well, thank you for that. Our cyber support program, which I referred to earlier in the meeting, we think, has been quite comprehensive. It certainly provided mental health and wellbeing support to our customers and those who are affected. We offered identity protection and monitoring for those who are affected as well as specific issues for particularly vulnerable customers, and we did have some of those. There are also specialist communications to customers about scams, and we continue to reiterate the need to be vigilant in all of those things.

Chair, a question from McMahon Family Investments Proprietary Limited. Can we shareholders get an update on the major data security breach? What has changed for MPL since and what IT and strategic improvements have and will be made?

Well, thank you for that question. Again, we tried to address this in brief in my comments. But what I can say that we have continued to invest in uplifting our security, but I should put that against the background that cybercrime and cyber resilience is just an ongoing issue that all of us are facing. Some may have seen the report of the Australian Signals Directorate, which was released earlier this week that said in Australia last year, that's last financial year to 30 June, there was a cybercrime committed every 6 minutes in this country. So we are facing an arms race. What we have done, though, is we've put additional security measures across all of our networks. We've implemented further security controls, and we've bolstered existing monitoring that we have. We're adding further detection and forensic capability across Medibank systems. And we did fix some of the issues that led to the cybercrime occurring. This is an ongoing program, and it's an ongoing investment that we'll continue to make. We've also put in place multifactor authentication for our customers across our contact centers across our My Medibank app, and our ahm online member services. But it's a continuing investment and one that we must face into, if were to remain, say, cyber safe.

Chair, a question from [ Natasha Lee ]. While the company seems to be focused on issues relating to cyber security, it seems that other computer issues are not being adequately addressed. Over the last few years, there have been issues with the disconnect between the policy expiry dates not matching between the online app and your system. As this affects several hundred customers, inadequate attention has been given to resolving the matter. While the company may not consider it a serious matter where the policy dates vary by a few days, it is a serious matter and likely resulted in a number of complaints. How is the company resolving this issue? And what time frame is envisaged to rectify the matter?

Well, thank you for that question. I think what you're referring to is an issue that occurred for some of our customers, and it was a very small number, related to the timing of when premium increases went through based on our give-back arrangements where we did defer the start of some premium increases. But we did have 2 of those occur within 1 year, and that did affect some customers. I understand that issue has now been resolved and can confirm that no customer was out of pocket as a result of that situation occurring.

Chair, a further question from shareholder, [ Natasha Lee ]. The risks listed in the annual report do not explicitly cover reputational risk. Given the issues faced by Medibank, I would expect that reputational risk was critical. Can you advise further?

Well, thank you. Yes, we very jealously guard our reputation to the maximum extent we can. And I mentioned that the organization's reputation is back to close to what it was pre the cyber event. In terms of the risks that we do list in the annual report, I think reputation kind of sits over all of those or is part of all of those because any of the activities, any of those risks occurring or any other activities that Medibank has, does have a reputational impact for us. But we don't look at it and detail it specifically. As I said, it's considered across that entire risk universe.

Chair, also from [ Natasha Lee ]. I note there's been no change in the value of goodwill. However, given the likely damage to reputation, I would have expected some decrease in this value. Please explain the reasoning for not adjusting the value of goodwill.

I'm looking at our auditors here because I may get drummed out of the Institute of Chartered Accountants if I say what I'm about to say, but I will anyway. Basically, that goodwill is not something that relates to the reputation of the company. It's an accounting nuance that occurs when acquisitions are made, and there is an element of goodwill that is attached to that acquisition. The goodwill that sits on our balance sheet relates to the acquisition of our ahm business, which goes back to 2009. We do actually undertake annual impairment test against that goodwill. But thus far, there has been no impairment of it. And hence, that's why there's been no adjustment to the value. Marcus is nodding. So it looks like I'm still good for the Institute of Chartered Accountants.

Chair, from shareholder, [ Frank Scarselli ], he asks, why the collapse on the shares has been so catastrophic for Medibank shareholders by the Board making wrong strategies on the market stocks.

I'm not sure I fully understand that question, but let me make a couple of points. One, if you're speaking about Medibank shares, our share are higher today than they were as we came into the 2023 financial year and about back to where we were pre the cybercrime event. If you're referring to the investment income that is reported, and I mentioned during my presentation that we had about $140 million of investment income on our portfolio in the 2023 year, we are required to mark our investments to market on a daily basis, and that's a requirement of our regulator, which we do. So some of those gains were unrealized. In the 2022 financial year, we had a loss of about $30 million on that mark-to-market basis. Again, unrealized but needed to be recognized through our income statement in terms of how we reported that. Our investment strategy remains conservative. We follow on our 80/20 strategy, 80% in basically cash and fixed interest style investments, 20% in growth assets. And obviously, all of those investments are subject to market fluctuations. But for the 2023 year, I think that strategy stood us in good stead. As we said, the investment income was about $140 million.

Chair, a question from [ William Bluefield ]. I shareholder. I see that Medibank is enacting a 4-day work week for its staff. Extra hours will not be worked on the 4 days to make up for the hours lost on the fifth day plus there will be no loss of pay. So my questions are, that is a 20% pay rise for less work, yet my fees will continue to rise. And who will man the missing employee hours that will be the result of the 4-day work week? Will it be a call center?

Well, thank you for the question. I think I addressed most of those when I was answering Mr. [ Hamilton's ] question earlier in the meeting. But to reiterate again, what we are talking about is 100% pay for 80% of the working hours, but an expectation and a requirement, in fact, that we maintain 100% productivity through that. It's an experiment. It involves 250 of our people, and we are not anticipating any detrimental effect on customer service or on service more generally.

Chair, the next question is from shareholders, [ Jeffrey Higgins ] and [ Robin Higgins ]. Given that Medibank company directors, officers, et cetera, already received significant remuneration for the work they perform, why must we continue to add special performance rights to their salaries? Note, most people work for a salary and do not receive these bonuses. Please show strong leadership and forgo this process of providing more incentives to do the work required by Medibank.

Well, thank you for the question, but I think I've got a comment that we actually are competing for talent in a very difficult market. If we were to actually not offer the types of structures that we do to our executive team and to others, then basically, our talent is mobile, and it is good talent that we have inside Medibank and we would suffer as a result of that. The alternative to not having at-risk remuneration, and I talked during my introduction of all of the items of business about the at-risk component of David's arrangements, if we were to adjust and just pay cash for that as opposed to putting that remuneration at risk, I don't think that would be in the best interest of shareholders. What we're doing, our policies are in line with all other major companies and with our competitors. And I think we need to remain competitive to attract and retain the right talent.

Chair, a question from shareholder [ Natasha Lee ]. The company has good female representation on the Board. But in spite of adopting diversity and inclusion policies, there is a lack of representation on the Board of those other forms of diversity. Research shows that companies perform better when the Board reflects the diversity of the community. Therefore, will the Board commit to improve [ CAL ], LGBTI, disability and indigenous representation on the Board?

Well, Medibank looks to be as inclusive as we can in terms of all parts of our operation. I don't believe as an organization, we discriminate in any way, shape or form. But what we do seek to do is to make sure that we directors who have the skills that are necessary to be able to undertake the roles, including the governance role that we spoke about earlier here. If those directors who -- and we go through a process of regular rotation. Anna is retiring from the Board today. If those directors who are coming on are in minority groups, we would welcome that, but we are not out seeking to say we want to have diversity for the sake of diversity. What we do need to have is those directors whose skills are going to serve our shareholders as best they can.

Chair, a question from shareholder, [ Joe Alvaro ]. What sort of attention is paid by management and the Board to the poor customer service record of Medibank as reported by numerous customers in public online forums and in social media? This includes long wait times on the phone, disrespectful attitudes from some staff and denial of product information often resulting from poor product knowledge from some staff.

Well, thank you for that. I mentioned earlier that we do monitor our service, and we look at our net service satisfaction indices quite closely as we go with that because we think that's the best demonstration of how our customers being served and feeling valued. Now I'm not going to pretend that we always get it right. However, what we do seek to do where we did not get it right, we seek to rectify that and to make sure that our customers are satisfied with that rectification. And as I said in answer to an earlier question, if customers are out of pocket as a result of some of those areas, we seek to rectify that as well. David, I don't know whether you want to make any further comments on that?

The only 2 additional comments. I think when we look at our Net Promoter Score results and compare those to others in the industry who publish them, we are leading in the market. And also our share of Ombudsman complaint is also well below our market share and has been for a few quarters now since we went through the cybercrime event. But as Mike said, it all doesn't go exactly to plan for our customers every time and we always seek to rectify that and learn from that. And customer service experience, as you've heard by both Mike and I, is the #1 priority for our business, and that's why we continue to invest and evolve and learn from.

Chair, a further question from shareholder [ Joe Alvaro ]. Can Medibank please stop using resources to make political statements during election campaigns like it did with the voice referendum, which it publicly supported? This was wrong and moved away from the core business of Medibank and did not respect the many shareholders and customers against the voice, which included many aboriginal people. It was considered by many as shareholder abuse and an attempt to curry favor with the government.

[ Mr. Alvaro ], I think I've answered this question twice plus made a statement inside my opening remarks to the meeting. I don't think I can be any clearer. We did not support one side or other of the voice referendum. We did not make any contribution to either side of the voice debate. What we did want to do is to make sure that our people were informed about both sides of the debate so that they could make an informed decision and have a respectful discussion. We didn't seek to influence a vote one way or another.

Chair, I can confirm there are no more questions.

Thank you. As there are no further written questions, I'll now move to audio questions via the Lumi platform. Are there any audio questions?

There are no audio questions.

Do I hear no audio questions?

Confirmed.

Thank you. As we appear to be getting to the end of our questions, just a reminder that voting will shortly close and so I ask shareholders and proxies to please finalize your votes. I'll now invite the audience in the meeting room today to ask any final questions if there are any questions in the room.

Chair, may I introduce Peter Aird from the Australian Shareholders Association.

Your lost time injury have increased sharply in the last year as reported, although they're still below target. Have questions been asked to management about the reasons for the increase and what actions have been put in place to improve performance?

Mr. Aird, yes, we do monitor that very closely because the wellbeing of our people is important to us. It's a topic that's regularly discussed our people and remuneration committee. I think some of that relates to some mental and other stress that some of our people were feeling, particularly those serving some government contracts that we have. But David, I don't know whether there's any further comments that you want to make on that?

No. And I think we pay particular attention also to our health employees, our nurses and our allied health professionals on the road, delivering important health care in people's homes. And, yes, it's a significant area of focus for us. But as you said, we remain within our targets, but we always recognize there's more that we can do and we pay strong attention to it.

Thank you. It doesn't appear that there's any further meeting -- further questions here. We've now reached the end of the formal business of the meeting, and voting will shortly close and so I ask shareholders and proxies to please finalize your votes. I'll once again display the indicative results of the proxies received on items 2 to 5. Once the voting has been finalized and the final report has been issued, we will release these outcomes to the ASX and publish them on Medibank's website, where you'll be able to access them later this afternoon. So I encourage people to vote now and give you fair warning that I am going to close the poll shortly. I see a few shareholders are still finalizing their vote, so a few more seconds. [Voting]

Is there anyone in the room that are still voting? Doesn't appear so. So I now close the polls. On behalf of the Board, I thank all of you for your attendance today and for your support of Medibank. The business of this meeting being complete, I now declare the meeting closed. For those shareholders who are joining us in Melbourne, my fellow directors and I invite you to join us -- and the executives in the foyer for refreshments. For those who have attended online today, I thank you again for your attendance and wish you all a good day. Thank you.