Telstra Group Limited (TLS) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, shareholders. I am Nathan Burley, Head of Investor Relations, and it is my pleasure to be your emcee 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 recognize their continued connection to land, waters and culture. I would also like to extend that welcome to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders people who are here today. Welcome to everyone here in the Sovereign Room. It is great to see so many shareholders here today. We're 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 on the way. 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 reenter 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'll see our virtual meeting guide. This contains all the information you need about how to vote and ask questions. If you can -- you can also call the help number shown on your screen if you have any difficulties. In terms of how we'll manage shareholder questions today. For each question session, we will rotate between taking questions from online, from the room and on the web phone. You may have -- we may have quite a few questions to get through, so please -- we please ask shareholders to be patient. I'll 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'll hand over to your Chairman, John Mullen.

Great. 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've 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. 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'm pleased to be joined on stage today by all of my fellow Board members: my 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 reelection today, and you will hear from each of them shortly. Sara Lowe from our auditors, Ernst & Young, is also here today, and I'm sure that 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 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'll try and share some reflections with you in a minute. Firstly, though, looking briefly back over the last 12 months, It's 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 almost all 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've returned to growth, strength in mobiles and our investment in customer experience all paying off with Episode NPS, net promoter score, 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's 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 this up front. We recognize 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. This 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 different views amongst both our Board and management. However, where we were all in agreement was that support was in the best interest 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. And it was made clear to us that the majority of First Nations people endorse the Voice is critical to the future and reconciliation, and we took those 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. But we remain committed to reconciliation, and we'll continue to work in close partnership with First Nations people and communities across Australia. So now if I may, let me share few reflections on these last 15 years, some of the things that went well, some of those didn't not go so well, and some of the lessons learned. Let me start by saying Telstra is in a really good place. The company is a completely different entity today than it was 15 years ago. Stronger and better in so many ways. The speed and the 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. But during this time, Telstra transformed itself into a dynamic, modern communications 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 school rooms to tractors, telehealth services, 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 it was 10 years ago, but the data included has increased by 25x. 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. 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 had an inevitable impact on earnings, dividends and our share price. But we have bounced back strongly. Our T22 program to radically restructure the company to offset some of those negative impacts has been extremely successful. Financially, over those 15 years, we have paid out over $45 billion in dividends to shareholders. We also 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 in the public from ever-rising cyber crime Telstra blocks more than 9 million scam calls and almost 280 million incoming scam and unwanted e-mails every month and around 20 million SMS messages since we launched our Cleaner Pipes initiative in 2022. We are also 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're one of the largest corporate contributors to renewal energy projects in the country. Last financial year, we also 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 and 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're 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 unrecognizable from a company that I joined back in 2008. And I must pay tribute to the many, many people across our organization 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 caliber, 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'm 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 the only large ASX corporate to need a director's parental leave policy as we have a young mom 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've 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 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. And I have absolute confidence. Vicki and her management team will take Telstra on to new heights in the years to come, and will retain Telstra's position as a 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 we'll probably see just as many changes and new challenges going forward, as we have seen in the 15 years that I've been here. It will no longer be my responsibility, but will be there of Craig, Vicki and their colleagues to set the direction going forward. But as I step down, I have 4 thoughts to pass on, which, of course, my colleagues may choose to agree with or completely 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 challenges how to monetize the extraordinary technology and capabilities offered by telcos 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 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 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 customer experience. This is truly a glass half full, half empty situation, 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. [indiscernible] 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 '22 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 digitization. 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. Again, 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 oneself, is guaranteed to ensure that one is always behind and not in front. While not perfect, Telstra actually has a good record in this regard. For example, our decision in 2010 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 digitization and networks. Our 2018 decision under T22 to simplify and digitize, create InfraCo and dramatically reduce cost. And our 2019 decision to double down on 5G launch investment to lead the industry. All of these led to us maintaining our market leadership, investing for the future, and delivering a better customer experience. And If we hadn't, we would not be in the strong position that we are today. So to my colleagues, be brave and keep this up. You'll get criticized for the off failure but I am 100% sure that the company will do better by continuing to take such risks than just by sitting on its hands and just hoping that things 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 ] for the right reasons, the consequences perhaps have 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 the best 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 executive should receive little, if any, variable compensation. If the share price is down due to acts or omissions of management then of course that not absolutely 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 challenging times than it is in good times. Reality, however, is that it's very difficult for the board of a public company to do that without coming under criticism from all this range of third parties. Another example would be that -- for some reason it's believed that paying director's 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' interest, and the company's interest 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. And in my view, these trends are to the detriment of the public company structure in Australia. And the huge beneficiaries of all of 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. 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 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 absolutely 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 some 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 Chair 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 possible success in taking on the role of Chair, and I have total confidence that the combination of Craig and Vicki, with the respected Board and management teams behind them, will take Telstra on to a whole another 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.

Thank you, John and good morning, ladies and gentlemen. And 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 the very substantial impact on the business, and of course the company's very successful transformation under the T22 strategy. And today, under John leadership Telstra is leaner, it's more agile, and strongly positioned to grow, with a world class network and with infrastructure assets, that will help underpin Australia's digital economy for many years to come. So John, once again thank you, and all the very best wishes to you and [indiscernible] well done. And so following this meeting, today, I will take on the role of Chair of Telstra. And I am deeply honored to be given this opportunity, and I also want to thank my colleagues on the Board for their support. I am very energized and confident about the future of Telstra, 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.

Well thank you, Craig, and good morning everyone. I'm delighted to be here for my second AGM as CEO, and I look forward to hearing your comments and questions today. There are 3 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 radically -- 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, digitization, 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 digitization 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 are making today, from our intercity fiber 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 digitize. We will be 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 cyber security. 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 multibrand 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 by 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 to 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 back of continued growth in the year, the Board resolved to pay a fully franked final dividend of $0.085 per share, bringing total dividends for the year to $0.17 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 & 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 fiber, scaling and simplifying our products to meet customer needs, reducing costs, and delivering 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 are almost at the half-way 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 1/3 on the prior year, and are at historic lows. We made great progress on digitization. Overall, we have digitized 68% of our key service transactions, like billing inquiries, and we are well on the way to digitizing all key service transactions by FY '25. 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 fiber 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 the ACCC not to grant authorization for 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 we -- 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 continued to show discipline on costs and improved ROIC. We have grown underlying ROIC to 8.1%, and we are focused on further growth to FY '25. While our cost out ambition is being challenged by high inflation, we still expect to achieve the large majority of this by FY '25. We remain absolutely committed to delivering our underlying EBITDA and EPS growth ambitions. And 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 FY '19 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 continued to invest in digital leadership to help drive better customer experience and left -- 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 FY '24, which I am confirming today. Underlying EBITDA guidance is consistent with our T25 ambition for a mid-single-digit CAGR FY '21 to FY '25. 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 fiber 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. FY '24 will be a critical year for us with a lot to deliver. We will continue to prioritize exact activities with the greatest impact on customer experience and invest in the capabilities and assets we need to deliver sustainable growth. There are 4 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 maximizing 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'd 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 organization and on me personally, and on behalf of the whole Telstra team, I thank you for your guidance and support. I'd 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 7 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 to 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.

Great. Get myself in order. Okay. Thank you, Vicki. Thank you very much. So 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 your 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. The 4 numbers include proxies received and available to be voted by the Chairman of the meeting. So 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 30th of 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 your questions. And to 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 of taking questions. I will 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. So Nathan, let's start. Do we have any online questions?

We have some. Yes, we do. We do have some online questions. And the first one is [ Theresa Kalahiro ]. 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?

Look, 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 just to receive cost increases across a broad range of its input costs and some of them far in excess of inflation. Electricity as an example. I think it's up $100 million or something like that last year alone. So we have to respond by cutting cost elsewhere, controlling costs tightly to try to make sure that we come in with a figure that allows the company to continue to grow this earnings. So it isn't a direct comparison. But we're very careful to minimize 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 is -- which many other companies have done.

Our next question online is from [ Bruce Bebbington. ] Telstra receives $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?

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 plug and switches and all of those things. And obviously, today, the world has moved on. We still have that obligation, and we still absolutely honor it, but we are working with government and others to work to look at how will the next generation of a universal service obligation be delivered, whether it's through satellite or other mechanisms. And 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.

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 2 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 on to 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?

Okay. Look, I think I have 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 it's not just 3G as an alternative -- and satellite, not just as an alternative to the old copper network. And 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. But again, we absolutely commit no one will get their -- or lose their service whether it's copper, 3G or any other form until there is a better replacement for it, but we'll maintain or improve the service they receive today.

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 3 years. However, customers who elected defaulted to the talk and time credits for up to 3 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 6 months as per the terms and conditions. Can you explain why this is occurring nationally? And why Telstra offered up to 3 years when it cannot honor the offer and terms and conditions?

Thank you. That's a very detailed question, and I think I might defer to Vicki to respond, please.

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 or for our legacy environment where the experience is a much better one. And 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 honor that. So that will be one I'd be happy to follow up off-line and make sure we understand exactly what is happening. Thank you.

John, we'll now take some questions from the floor. And the first question we'll take is from microphone 2.

Chairman, I'd like to introduce Mike Robey to speak from the ASA.

Good morning, Mr. Chairman and Mr. Chairman-elect. My name is Mike Robey. I'm a volunteer monitor for a not-for-profit organization called the Australian Shareholders Association, which looks after the interest of retail shareholders. May I start by welcoming you to your swan song, 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. Mike, I have 2 questions, if I may. The EGM in July last year paved the way for monetization of the potential -- 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 is -- this monetization now being put on hold, put on ice. And 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 monetize it? So that's the first one. If I maybe make the second one as well.

I'll try and keep up with, Mike.

All right.

Yes, sir.

The next one is, as you mentioned in your speech, telcos have lost all their high-margin services in recent years. So those of us who remember limited calls, which cost by the call, text, we charged at $0.20; international roaming, which is a rip off, it basically gave you enormous amount of revenue. It's all being 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 is the growth? Because we can see you sliding into kind of more and more of the same and as you said, with higher and higher costs in the network. So they're my 2 general question.

Thank you. I've enjoyed our interactions over the years as well with patience. So let me talk firstly about the monetization question of InfraCo. So I think Vicki addressed this to a degree, both at her full year comments, but also in the speech just now. But it was a result of an exhaustive process, and it's 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 thought it was to continue to monetize i.e., sale of some of those assets, we would have done so. But after a lot of discussion and advice, we -- and despite the success of the towers, the Amplitel, we decided it was not in the best interest of shareholders. And 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 monetize them. And secondly, of course, the world has changed. Since we first started talking about this, interest rates have risen, inflation has risen and asset values have come down quite sharply. So it's always a trade-off to do you sell some of or all of the family silver for a quick hit today? Shareholders think is wonderful, and you get 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. So we have to balance all of those things. As I said, if we felt that the right decision was to monetize, 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 a question that's top of the list for most large telcos around the world. I mean 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 there's other pressures that you just mentioned, several billion dollars more away. And the fact that we're back up to $8 billion of EBITDA is a huge credit to the management team. And when you go through that and you pick it apart, obviously, the area that we're no longer receiving a large benefit from is the fixed business where we used to own the assets and made a margin on. Today, nbn owns the assets, and we're a reseller with a low margin. That's not going to change. There will be ups and downs in process, 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 last 2 years, particularly this last year has been excellent, and that growth is continuing. And 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 with the carriage of data, especially on a mobile platform. I think only a few years ago, no one had heard of Netflix. I think it's about 25% of internet traffic or something today. And 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, all these other things. And we're right in the center of that with our 5G infrastructure. So I feel pretty confident that you will see continued growth from our core business going forward. And we 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 mobile business is going to continue to drive the growth of the company for the next foreseeable while.

Thank you, John. We will now move to microphone 1 for the next question.

Chairman, I would like to introduce [ Howard Paske ] from Melbourne to speak.

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 rather 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 technologies advanced at the site. Now the good -- there are the good points. What happens if you die? Now the issue is [ single ] account holders, if he die, 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, there's -- you could say that there's more than 1/3 of the population in this room have not got a will. So if you die, what happens to your accounts with your telco? And the other question I asked -- and the first question -- the first person I met at Telstra at the entrance to [ jet shed ] was, you've got a mobile phone. He's a young person. Have you told your telco the authorized people that connect on your behalf if, say, you get -- die in a car accident? The person said, no. The question I ask the Board is, should all people -- all your customers have -- inform the telco the authorized people if they haven't done a will or listed powers of attorney? Have you got the authorized people on the records in case the person dies? I've contacted Federal Power -- 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. Is it all embracing? It makes it so difficult for people that die and they haven't informed the telco about the authorized people on their behalf. It's an issue that politicians find hard to deal with. It's still outstanding and love your comment.

Thank you. Thank you, Howard, for that question. I have to say, firstly, I sympathize with you. It's -- having lost a father and a mother in the last 12 months and having to deal with the practicalities of losing a loved one, I absolutely agree. And unfortunately, it's not just telecommunication services. It's across a whole range of people's positions and activities in society that's quite complicated to fix when -- on the time of death. Obviously, from a telco perspective, obviously, we don't know when someone is going to die, and quite often, people's mind's elsewhere, understandably. They don't think, 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. And our systems are far from perfect, but there is actually now 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 for someone else. There are a lot of problem and issues there to make sure that in domestic violence situations and all sorts of other things, you've got to be extremely careful to protect the customers' 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're all over that.

Thank you.

I think we'll stay with microphone #1.

Chairman, I would like to introduce [ Dell Biller ] to speak.

I will be very brief. You have my congratulation for your achievement. It looks like in your presentation, you are involved in almost everything what moves in this country, which I don't believe is right. It was right. My apologies, it's too much of it. Why don't you dwell on the negatives to make sure that you can improve? Because if everything is hunky-dory, there's nothing for you to do. Isn't it? Secondly, I would like to know why the shares from $7, nobody mentioned that -- came down to whatever it is today? And 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. And the question is very hard. How many directors have been in Telstra Board and left Telstra since the Testa became private?

Wow. Okay. Well, so the -- we don't -- never said, I don't think that we think everything is hunky-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 are working on the whole time. That's what the management and Board does. There are -- meeting like this, we just take 2 or 3 things and -- to the short story, but I believe you [ may have heard ] behind the scenes there's a huge amount of discussion about the challenges. And I mentioned some of the 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 hunky-dory, but we're certainly hopefully going in the right direction. Market share, I think we probably -- if I understood right, maybe you're referring to the fixed market share where the reseller of the nbn, -- was that the question?

Share price.

Share price. Sorry, I thought it was market share. Well, share price, I'd 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 hasn't done a fantastic job to build the company back up again, the share price will be a lot lower than it is today. And 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 really like to know and get that information to you.

The reason is because those people, they put their things and their bags and they left. That's the problem. And I -- 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 it was so complicated to go out of Telstra because they could not offer. What I'm trying to say on where you're losing is on grassroots, on shops, which are people very poorly trained and it's the fault of management, not their fault, and unfriendly behavior 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.

Thank you. You're absolutely right about the stores. And one of the things that's not hunky-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 labor market, but also some problems of our own making around systems and the like. So we're very, 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.

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 2 years, is it still being installed from fiber node to property at the moment?

If the questions are we still installing copper, then the answer is no. Copper is obviously becoming increasingly redundant, is being replaced by fiber 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.

The next question was on behalf of [ Helen Lotus ], Super Pty Ltd. Question to the executor of Telstra. Some people are switching to other providers. Telstra services are $20 expensive than any other service provider. What is Telstra doing to retain these customers?

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.

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'm in favor of hybrid meetings. My question is, how much extra does it cost Telstra to conduct a hybrid meeting compared to a physical meeting only?

Thank you. That's a great question. Look, it doesn't cost a 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 university course in how to vote at AGM 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.

We will 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.

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?

Yes, thank you for the question. And just -- 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.

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 favor with the government.

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.

Okay. We'll move back to the floor. Question -- 4 has a question.

Chairman, I'd like to introduce Ian Hamilton from Melbourne to speak.

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 authorization code within five seconds, it would prove to anyone who picks up the phone that they're getting a genuine Telstra call? And, 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?

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 have 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 recognize 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, but -- how many?

3,000.

3,000, sorry. So -- 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 mind boggling. 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. And 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 can obviously - obviously it was s in the garden, not in the house, you obviously can do so. But maybe Vicki can put it on the next Board meeting agenda [indiscernible] thank you.

Where is your museum?

Sorry?

Where is your museum?

In Hawthorn. Thank you. Great questions.

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 whilst 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?