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 2024 Annual General Meeting. Before we officially start proceedings, I would like to welcome to the stage, Aunty Margret Campbell.

[Foreign Language] means hello or good day or good morning or good afternoon, very diverse local languages. And [Foreign Language] welcome. Welcome to the land of the Gadigal People. The Gadigal People is 1 of 29 clans that still hold all the information, the intelligence that has been handed down from our ancestors of the past. That's why we acknowledge them. I'm actually sending in this little behavior, you're probably wondering why the hell is she hitting 2 little pieces of sticks together. It's because it comes from a tree. And when you are born into a landscape like Gadigal Country, you're holding the intelligence of the [Foreign Language] that you've rebranded as trees. There's a whole lot of them on the right hand, on the left hand side of our fingertips. So when we're actually harvesting these from the landscape, for those children who will live on in that generational handing down of this information, we always pay our respect and acknowledge our ancestors, our spirit. We don't do prayer. This is one of the ways that we will do it, as women. And as a 75-year-old, I'm holding what is regarded as knowledge and intelligence from our ancestors, the [Foreign Language], the tree population, all the knowledge that gives this, seasons. Seasons. Even the tone and the sound, the radar, the sonar. When you are gifted these as a child born into that landscape, you will proceed along your lifetime to hold all that ancestors intelligence from each of those trees, the biodiversity where it's habitat-ing in. Huge knowledge. So when we acknowledge our ancestors from the past, we're talking about how we give thanks and gratitude to those elders, ancestor spirits, the Min Min, custodians, who hold the [Foreign Language]. And basically, when that Milky Way exploded of the first shedding and all the thousands of trees diversities, all the waterways diversities, all the wind diversities, all the lightning, what has been rebranded worldwide to other civilizations, it's that -- it's easy to just call it weather and climate. It's easier. For us, it's the ancestors that speak in their language. And that's why when we are out on country taking the [ little-ings ] with their first set of sticks, we're teaching them the real world of that, in contrast to our virtual monarchy, virtual Camelot that's here. We can't understand that. So in welcoming you, I wanted to give you an understanding of why is it we still practice this very basic prayer level. When we say "Thank you, elders from the past," we acknowledge our custodians, our [Foreign Language], who gifted us all this in that whole ceremonial area, which is why we do circle ceremonies. You'll see it in art everywhere. That's basically where the Milky Way is giving us the story and the ceremonies. And do you know, "Ma'am, what's your name?"

Sue.

Sue, can i get you to put your right hand? When you're seeing rock art, whether it's in the red, white or yellow artistic representation in the landscape, in that art is a signature, Sue. And in the middle of all that, you've got that Milky Way pattern. I think you might have rebranded it as fingerprints worldwide. We're holding -- thank you very much. We're holding that when we're putting that art image in the landscape where country is calling out. I'm holding all this because I'm birthing all these and what lives in that, usually a bird. So our child will get all this intelligence, ancestors' intelligence, our version of AI, because we can see it. It's real in our world. When we're teaching this story to our young children. So I want to welcome you to the multitude diversity of stories in each landscape. The landscape is surrounded by a beautiful -- all the water world that comes down. I was saying to one of your staffers earlier on. The [Foreign Language] clan up there. It's all the white cloud. You'll see that again in smoking ceremonies that we harvest resources from, based on the custodianship of a child saying, "Well, I can harvest this," or, "I can't harvest this." So we're teaching those stories. Welcoming you to these stories is very, very profound for me as an elder because we're not getting a chance to teach this into schools enough. And acknowledging our elders, like me, I'm one of thousands of elders who have been schooled in this story. Many of our elders are going off to a dream time too quickly. So we acknowledge and pay our respect all those elders who are passing on this knowledge to our next generations, our children. We can't get enough of them because they are going off. I've got a little bit of a heavy heart, our elders are going too early. And our efforts to be able to protect them here, our now aged care areas is very, very profound for us, but we're actually having lots of challenges in that. I may come back to the Telstra Foundation on that later on, et cetera, et cetera, and have a bit of a conversation with you about that. But we pay and acknowledge our respect to our elders, past and present. Those on the shoulders that we've stood on that have made sure elders like me receive this, as it's been passed down in accordance with these trees are shedding 72 seasons, 72 Australians inheritance. All this knowledge, they are color coded in 72 primary colors so that we can see these stories when we are walking out on country. So in acknowledging and paying my respect to them, this is how we pay our gratitude to this knowledge and stories that have been handed down to us that we can physically see in each environment here in the land of Gadigal People. And how can we tell this is Gadigal? Because there's a big waterways called Baramadigal River. And we put a spirit circle around that, geographically, basically 25, 30 Ks each direction. The reason circle? Because we don't get a square or an oblong coming up in the sky every day to tell us, that's the story. It's been rebranded worldwide as the sun and the moon, the first lights, extraordinary stories. So in acknowledging all our ancestors who have gifted us all this intelligence for us, mere simple human beings, First Nations here in Eora Country, that is the language of Eora people. And that big salt water river houses still little freshwater creeks running into it. That's how family, one kinship, family, one connections are all along their particular sections of those fresh waterways. That's why we acknowledge the big water systems where aboriginal Torres Islander People are still residing today. And we're all even little images at my little circles here. They're embedded all along those river systems, where these are still habitat-ing. So it's all in place in terms of what we're holding. On your right-hand side, which is my right hand side, we've got all our ancestors of the past and our great, great human families, grandfathers' level, who bestowed that knowledge. On the left side, we've got our women's side, our ancestors' womens', and we call them the [Foreign Language] trees. We call the [Foreign Language] winds. We call them the [Foreign Language] lightnings. They're all those male and female ancestor spirits that are there in the landscape, both sky, waterways. And when Aboriginal People from Gadigal Country and the Eora Country will say, "We are the saltwater people," because right magically, spiritually, when you travel along the big salt water rivers up towards a place called Parramatta is with the magic freshwater. Sue, do you know what color water is?

Well...

Not a trick question, ma'am.

I'm from Melbourne. [ There ], it's brown.

Where does it come from? It's out there, ceremonial today, you'll call it clouds. And you won't get water, Sue, until it -- can I get you to put your fist up here? It's got to go to my color folks to get water. It won't happen otherwise. That intelligence won't happen. When you've got 97% of the same ingredient and so have I. But see, you've got the beautiful white ochre cloud colors, which is the first ingredient of what is weather. And all those sequencing of intelligence for us is there, environment, Australians, fellow Australians, thank you, is our inheritance. The knowledge is extraordinary. So we acknowledge and pay our respect to all those. We acknowledge that they are the saltwater people, the freshwater up the mountains area, different language, Dharug people. So when we're talking about the whole salt water, we're saying, yes, we embrace you in us because we know you are in us. So those aspects of this welcome to country, I wanted you to get an idea of why does it we do these, because we can't go to any of our churches area where all these have been dismantled. We don't have that opportunity to do that. Where we go to these places and I'm very happy when I see some of the footage, that Telstra is so respectful when they go out and lay all this. You're actually mindful now where these cablings are being laid, because all these sacred teachings are there in terms of the places of significance. So in acknowledging original people today, the elders, past and present, I want to acknowledge those existing aboriginal Torres Islander People, who may very well be a part of the Telstra team already. We pay our respect to them because when they enter your realm of world and workplace, it's almost quite different. So I pay my respect, all the -- and give you gratitude for what you're doing for those elders, those existing aboriginal people who are in your workplace, still holding all the -- this custodial-ship responsibility. Of course, finally, emerging custodians. I can see the Telstra brand everywhere. And it's wonderful to see how all this authenticity is coming through, even in the marketing things that I'm watching this morning. I pay my respect to that because you are the emerging custodians. Aboriginal People here in Gadigal Country are the freshwater people and saltwater people. We are the sunrise people. We are the [Foreign Language] people, the [Foreign Language] people. So we will talk about that because that's our skin names, and that's our aboriginal identity. But you'll notice, we're talking about the environmental identity because that's the spirit intelligence that we speak about. We invite you, fellow people, to become part of this custodianship because it is your belong-ism. It's as much as our belong-ism. We've been holding on to this knowledge for generations and generation under the most extraordinary circumstances, especially when you don't have a voice in the government legislation, it's even more challenging. So we pay our respect to you, we invite you, fellow Australians, at all levels to take on this journey with us, of custodianship, of the belonging-ism that's embedded deeply in not just the waterways, the sky world and also land world. It's yours. We invite you to walk the journey with us, to let our voices grow and be stronger as the elders, and we welcome you to country on the context of all those stories. If you're lucky enough to be in Sydney, you will also inherit the big whale dreaming, because those whales who dance their stories into the world, what we call the first shedding up there, the Milky Way, the whales were part of all our stories, too. So welcome people. May our ancestors hear our talk this morning, may they look at us, may they stand by us, and I ask him to guide you in your -- because you are holding each of their ancestor intelligence in each of your fingerprints. That's why we do all this circle stuff on our customs and ceremonies. I want to thank you very much, [ Lizzie ], wherever you are. Thank you very much for inviting me again. I always enjoy giving you a little bit of a cultural awareness, because I wanted you to know how aboriginal Australians are still feeling very, very proud of the way that we do our prayer level. And of course, this is just a very basic level of how we acknowledge people to the land of Gadigal People, today, in the Eora Country. We're still holding these stories, so thank you very much, fellow Board of Directors. Thank you, Sue, for being my helper today. I hope I didn't embarrass you. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Thank you, Aunty Margret, for joining us this morning and for that welcome. So welcome to everyone here in the grand ballroom. It's great to see so many shareholders here today. I'd also like to welcome everyone who is viewing the live webcast online from wherever you may be located. There are a few procedural and housekeeping matters to run through before we get underway. For those in the room, we will be serving a light lunch at around 12 noon. However, if the AGM has not finished by that time, we will not be adjourning for lunch. You also have been given a card when you registered this morning. Yellow cards are for shareholders who may speak and vote. Blue cards are for shareholders who may speak but not vote. You will need your card to ask a question or to 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 to one of our team members in the room or in the shareholder registration area outside, who will be happy to assist you. The procedure on how to ask a question here in the room is now being shown on the screen. [Operator Instructions]. In terms of how we'll manage the questions today, for each question session, we will rotate between taking questions from online and in the room. We may have quite a few questions to get through. So we ask shareholders to please be patient. We will start with online questions as this will allow shareholders in the room to move to a microphone. I'll read the online question to the Chair as they have been written by shareholders. If we can't answer your question fully or we can't get through all the questions today, we'll respond to any unanswered questions after the meeting, either directly or through the questions -- to common answered questions on our AGM website. If you have any individual customer or shareholder issue, please speak to one of our customer service team members here today. For shareholders submitting written questions online, one of our customer service or share registry staff will be in touch with you after the meeting. For shareholders viewing the live webcast online, the platform is open, and you may submit your questions now. With those procedural matters out of the way, I'll hand over to your Chair, Craig Dunn.

Thank you, Nathan, and good morning, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Craig Dunn, and it's my great pleasure to welcome you to Telstra's 2024 Annual General Meeting. Thank you for joining us today and for your continued investment in Telstra. This meeting is being webcast. So a very warm welcome also to the many shareholders who have chosen to join us online. A quorum is present, and so I formally declare today's meeting open. A Notice of Meeting has been distributed to shareholders setting out the business and resolutions to be considered today. I propose to take that notice as read. The items of business on today's agenda are now being shown on the screen. Voting on items 3 to 6 will be conducted by poll, and that poll is now open. Instructions on how to participate in the poll were distributed prior to the meeting and assistance is available at any time. There are 2 points related to these items that I will touch on briefly now. In keeping with good corporate governance, during the year, we reviewed our external audit engagement and tested the market, and are proposing to change our external auditor. In anticipation that shareholders agree with this change, I'd like to thank Ernst & Young for their exemplary service over the past 24 years. We've enjoyed a productive relationship and have greatly appreciated their professionalism and independence. I'll also make some comments about the remuneration report when we come to that agenda item later in the meeting. I'm pleased to be joined on stage today by my follow Board Members, apart from Bridget Loudon, who is on parental leave. Also joining us on stage is our Company Secretary, Sue Laver, and our Chief Financial Officer, Michael Ackland. Indeed, this is Sue's last AGM, given she is retiring from the company after 27 years at Telstra, including 6 years as Company Secretary. And on behalf of the Board and everyone at Telstra, I offer Sue my sincere thanks and best wishes. So thank you, Sue. Director Niek Jan van Damme is also retiring from Telstra today, after 6 years on the board. I want to thank Niek Jan for his commitment and very substantial contribution to the Board during a period of very significant change, and I wish you, Niek Jan, the very best wishes for the future. Roy Chestnutt is standing for reelection today, and you will hear from Roy shortly. Earlier today, we announced the appointment of David Lamont as a Non-executive Director. David is an accomplished CFO and business leader who has helped senior -- who has held senior executive roles with major corporations, including BHP and CSL. His appointment is effective the 3rd of December 2024, and David will stand for election at our AGM in October next year. Sarah Lowe from our auditors, Ernst & Young, is also here this morning, and I know Sarah will be happy to answer any questions you may have on the audit or the auditor's report. Members of the senior management team are also present in the audience, and I'm proud to join you, for the first time as Chair, and at my eighth AGM since joining the Telstra Board. I'd now like to share with you some perspectives on our financial and operating performance since the beginning of T25, stress the importance of connectivity to Australia's future and highlight the extraordinary contribution our people at Telstra make to customers, communities and to our country. And beginning with our financial performance, where we have seen significant improvement over the last 3 years. In FY '24, we achieved our third consecutive year of underlying EBITDA growth. And when coupled with a significant improvement in underlying return on invested capital, very importantly, this has allowed Telstra to deliver annual dividend compound growth of 4% over the last 3 years. And this outcome has been achieved while maintaining a strong balance sheet and prudent debt levels. Our mobiles business continues to perform very strongly, and we're focused on maintaining this strength and momentum. Our infrastructure businesses are also performing well, reinforcing our confidence in our decision to retain ownership of InfraCo Fixed. On the other hand, the performance of our Enterprise business has been disappointing, and its turnaround is important to get right. Vicki and our management team are facing into these challenges and the Board believes they're making the right decisions here. The reset of this business, however, will take time, discipline and focus. For customers, we've been relentless in improving what matters most to them. And while we still have more to do, our customers are telling us that their experience continues to get better, as seen in our improving episode Net Promoter Score. Indeed, over the last 3 years, complaints by consumers and small businesses to the telecommunications industry ombudsman about Telstra have fallen by more than 2/3. For our people, we've continued to invest in making Telstra a great place to work and have maintained a high employee engagement score. Reducing our emissions is good for Telstra and good for Australia, and we have reduced our absolute Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 37% on a 2019 baseline. And recently, we set higher targets for reducing these emissions. As we embrace the last year of our T25 strategy, we are well-positioned to capitalize on the opportunities that lie ahead with an updated strategy that will begin next financial year. Pleasingly, many of the fundamentals are working in our favor. Connectivity has never been more important, and there is strong growing demand for our core products and services. Telecommunications has a critical role to play in Australia's future. And with so much done to set us up for success, the Board continues to be optimistic about Telstra's future. More than ever, what we do underpins Australian industries, lives and livelihoods. Connectivity is the foundation for so many new technologies, including AI, which is expected to contribute billions of dollars to Australia's economy. These new technologies will also mean significantly increased demand for our telecommunications infrastructure. This includes our intercity fiber network, which will play an important role in future-proofing Australia's speed and capacity needs for decades to come. In addition, every year, customers expect to do more with their phones and to use mobile data, and the resilience of our mobile network becomes ever more important. Building and operating this infrastructure and maintaining Australia's leading mobile network requires us to make significant long-term investments. Earning an appropriate return on these investments allows us to keep investing for the future. And as shareholders, you have the right to expect reasonable returns on the capital you provide. We take that expectation very seriously. For example, we adjust our size and shape to fit the market, and recently, we reduced a large number of roles across the business. These decisions are never easy, but they are necessary for us to keep investing to deliver connectivity to the standard our customers expect while also delivering value for our shareholders. We also set fair and competitive prices that reflect the value our products provide with different options at a range of price points. And based on our track record of adding new services and winning customers, we believe we get that balance right. At the same time, we're very acutely aware of the very real economic pressures currently faced by many consumers and businesses alike. And we continue to support Australians who may be doing it tough to stay connected. This includes people experiencing financial hardship, domestic violence, mental health issues or natural disasters. We also have a significant discount on our starter mobile plan for pensioners and veterans. Furthermore, we constructively work with government on policy and regulatory settings to underpin a financially sustainable and competitive telecommunications sector. In addition to your capital, our ability to meet the connectivity needs of our customers and our nation fundamentally depends on the skills and commitment of our very passionate workforce. Our people are the face of Telstra, in local stores, in technology centers, on the road and on the phone, including supporting customers in the most vulnerable circumstances. They are maintaining and expanding Australia's largest mobile network, and laying our intercity fiber in every kind of terrain around our big country. They are on the ground when disaster strikes, working in the most difficult conditions to reconnect services and to keep people connected to their loved ones. They are working to protect our customers from scams through our Cleaner Pipes work, blocking more than 10 million scam calls and 14 million SMS scams each month, on average, over the last year. And they're working on Telstra's contribution to Australia's energy transition, which means we now support renewable energy generation projects worth more than $1.4 billion. At Telstra, we're incredibly proud of our people and the contribution they make. I thank them for everything they do. As we move into our final year of our T25 strategy, the Board continues to be very confident in the company's outlook. While there is, of course, much more work to be done, we have a strong foundation to build on, significant opportunities to grow and a highly capable leadership team and workforce. And on behalf of the Board, I'd like to conclude by thanking you, our shareholders, for your continued investment in Telstra. Our focus remains on delivering value, value for our customers, for our shareholders and for our communities. Thank you, and I'll now pass across to Vicki.

Thank you, Craig, and good morning, everyone. I'm delighted to be here for my third AGM as CEO, and I look forward to hearing your comments and questions. I'll cover 3 things today: Telstra's overall business performance for FY '24; the investments we're making in Australia's future, picking up on some of Craig's points; and our outlook for FY '25. Turning first to our performance for the year. You can see a summary of our FY '24 results on this slide. Consistent and disciplined execution of our strategy has delivered our third consecutive year of underlying growth and positive momentum across many of our key indicators. Underlying EBITDA is a key measure, and it grew by almost $300 million or 3.7% to $8.2 billion. This underlying EBITDA growth flowed through to underlying net profit after tax, which grew by 7.5% to $2.3 billion. Our mobile and infrastructure businesses, including InfraCo Fixed, Amplitel and International, comprised 96% of our underlying EBITDA and grew strongly at rates of almost 6% or more. However, our Enterprise business underperformed. We commenced action during the year to address challenges in our Enterprise business, and took additional action on cost overall. Our reported earnings reflect these decisions, and combined with other adjustments, resulted in significant one-off net costs, totaling $715 million. As a result, reported EBITDA decreased by 4.2% to $7.5 billion, and our reported net profit after tax reduced by 12.8% to $1.8 billion. On the back of underlying earnings growth, the Board resolved to pay a fully franked final dividend of $0.09 per share, bringing total dividends for the year to $0.18 and representing a 5.9% increase compared to last year. This outcome is consistent with our policy to move the fully franked dividend and seek to grow it over time. Turning to performance in the different parts of our business now. Our mobiles business has continued to perform very strongly, with EBITDA growth of over $400 million. This growth was driven by more people choosing our network, with more than 560,000 net new handheld customers, along with average revenue per user growth. Mobile services revenue grew by 5.6% and our Mobile business underpinned our overall underlying earnings growth. Our infrastructure businesses also grew, reflecting ongoing demand for our assets. InfraCo Fixed and Amplitel EBITDA grew by around $150 million in aggregate, further strengthening my confidence in our infrastructure growth ambitions. Our intercity fiber network is an investment in Australia's future growth, connectivity and digital prosperity. We recently announced an expansion of our strategic partnership with Microsoft, including signing contracts for the first routes they will use as foundational partner on this network. This is an example of the strong demand we see for these assets and their role in underpinning technology, including AI. In Fixed Consumer and Small Business, we continue to grow with EBITDA growth of almost $120 million, reflecting ongoing cost discipline and average revenue per user growth. We established Telstra business in the year to focus on delivering for small and medium businesses, and we now have a dedicated team to support their needs, innovation and growth. While most parts of our business performed strongly, Fixed Enterprise is clearly a long way from where we need it to be. We have faced into underperformance, particularly within Network Applications and Services, and made decisions to begin the reset of that business. This includes reducing our NAS products portfolio by 2/3 over the next few years and focusing on where we are clearly differentiated. We have also reorganized our teams to deliver better for customers and reduce our cost base. The reset of our Enterprise business will take time, but I am confident in the initial actions we have taken. These necessary choices and decisions in Enterprise, together with our additional action on cost, mean we are confident in achieving our $350 million cost reduction ambition by the end of FY '25. Changes that affect our people are never easy, and I do not underestimate the impact they have. We continue to support our people through change and minimize the impact on our customers. Turning briefly to our T25 strategy. Despite challenges in Enterprise, the strong action we took in the second half of FY '24, and growth in all other parts of the business, means that overall, we are on track to achieve our ambitions, including growth in underlying EBITDA, earnings per share and return on invested capital. Our achievements by strategic pillar and overall scorecard performance were included in our full year results material lodged with the ASX in August. I won't talk to this in detail now, but it is available online in our Investor Center should you wish to review it. Over the last 12 months, we've continued to deliver on our purpose by investing in vital infrastructure for the nation, supporting more customers than ever and supporting Australia's future prosperity. A few things I will call out on this slide. This year, we have invested $5 billion in CapEx and mobile spectrum payments, which brings us to $42 billion invested in CapEx and spectrum over the last 10 years. That investment has radically transformed the connectivity Australia relies on. Over that decade, we transitioned beyond 2G technologies, closing that network in 2016. After almost 5 years of planning and working with customers, we are now in the last stages of transitioning from 3G to 4G and 5G networks, which are faster, more secure and more reliable. We know how important it is to give customers time to make this transition. And so we have extended the closure of our 3G network, which will commence from 28 October. Our people have completed thousands of 4G site upgrades and optimized our entire 4G network to deliver coverage equivalent to 3G. Until the network is fully closed, some devices may still connect to 3G despite 4G being equivalent. After closure, all compatible devices will use the available 4G or 5G network. Our overall investment has delivered Australia's largest and most reliable mobile network, adding 240,000 square kilometers of additional mobile coverage since FY '21 and now reaching 99.7% of the population. As I mentioned, we are continuing to roll out our intercity fiber network, and we now have over 2,200 kilometers of fiber in the ground. We also continued to expand our subsea cable network, which is the largest in Asia Pacific, and build more resilience into Australian's connection to the world. We remain Australia's biggest investor in digital infrastructure. For customers, this has delivered secure and reliable connectivity. Given the extensive reach of our networks and the role they play in society today, it's hard to think of an Australian who does not benefit from the Telstra network in some way every day. For example, our network supports more than 26 million mobile services and connectivity for more than 3 million households. More than 85% of ASX 100 are Telstra customers. Our investments have improved connectivity and options in regional Australia. I visited with one of our first customers on our satellite home Internet product who were thrilled to be able to do simple things that the majority of us take for granted, like watch a video shared in a family group chat and be part of the conversation in the moment rather than catching up days later when they visited town and could finally download the video. The impact of people feeling truly connected is big. Staying safe online also remains a priority for Australia. In addition to our Cleaner Pipes work, which Craig mentioned earlier, we have expanded our scam indicator initiative with the Commonwealth Bank to cover land lines as well as mobiles. And we continue to work closely with government and industry to bolster our country's cyber defenses. For Australia, the connectivity we provide is vital to enabling our country to operate every day, underpinning everything from businesses, big and small, to governments, households, entertainment and public services. Every sector benefits from the investments we have made. Over the past 12 months, we paid more than $2 billion in dividends to our shareholders, benefiting more than 16 million Australians. We employed more than 26,000 people in Australia, and we paid more than $1 billion in taxes. We understand how fundamental power and communications are during an extreme weather event. And we have stepped up our disaster response efforts, including mobilizing more than 3,000 of our people around the country to respond on the ground or via a dedicated disaster assistance line. We are also reducing our emissions, stepping up our targets and supporting renewable energy generation, as Craig mentioned. Our purpose is to build a connected future so everyone can thrive, and in a technology-enabled future, I believe that purpose is more important than ever. Turning to guidance for FY '25. You can see on the slide the ranges, along with the conditions upon which we have provided them. We expect continued underlying EBITDA growth and tightened our guidance range in August upwards to $8.5 billion to $8.7 billion. Business-as-usual CapEx including Digicel Pacific of $3.2 billion to $3.4 billion continues to demonstrate our disciplined approach to CapEx. Strategic investment of $0.3 billion to $0.5 billion in FY '25 reflects the ramp-up of our intercity fiber project. Free cash flow before strategic investment is expected to be between $3 billion to $3.4 billion. This guidance includes around $300 million of cash outflow related to FY '24 restructuring costs. It also demonstrates the cash generation of our operating business and supports our ambition to maximize our fully franked dividend and seek to grow it over time. As we look ahead, we are focused on finishing T25 strongly and setting the business up for long-term success. We've made excellent progress and achieved a lot so far. In FY '25, we must remain focused on lifting customer experience, continue delivering financial growth and value from our world-leading mobile network and high-quality infrastructure, continue the reset of our Enterprise business and keep delivering on our commitment to simplify our operations and improve our productivity. These actions are essential to support our sustainable growth and to put us in a position to deliver for customers now and in the long run. I want to thank the Telstra team for all of their efforts this year. It is the combination of our network and technology, our purpose and the way our teams come together to deliver that makes a difference for our customers. I'd also like to thank our shareholders for your continued support and investment and our Boar for your leadership and guidance over the last 12 months. I am optimistic about the opportunities ahead. Telstra's digital infrastructure and network will be increasingly central to how Australians live and work, and we are focused on investing sustainably to deliver for our customers and our shareholders. Thank you.

Thank you, Vicki. Right. Well, now we'll move to the formal part of the meeting and the items of business are being shown on the screen. Nathan outlined, at the start of the meeting, how you can ask a question and vote. Shareholders viewing the webcast online may also submit questions through the online platform. And as I mentioned earlier, voting on items 3 to 6 is being conducted by poll. Mr. Chris Healey of MUFG, formerly of Link Market Services, Telstra Share Registry, is acting as our returning officer in relation to the poll. We've received, from proxies, over -- proxies, rather, from over 13,100 shareholders and direct votes from over 10,600 shareholders. We will display the proxy and direct votes recorded for and against an item on the screen when we get to that item. The 4 numbers include proxies received and available to be voted by the Chair of the meeting. I'll now turn to item 2 on today's agenda, which is to discuss the company's financial statements and reports for the year ended 30 June 2024. This item provides shareholders with the opportunity to ask questions about our 2024 financial statements and reports as well as the business operations and management of Telstra. You can also ask questions of our auditor, Ernst & Young. So now I'll take questions from shareholders about our 2024 results or any general questions about your companies. Shareholders, I invite you to move to a microphone to ask a question. For shareholders viewing the webcast online, please submit your questions through the online platform. To ensure there is an even spread of questions from shareholders in the room and those submitted online, I will rotate between the 2. To allow shareholders in the room time to move to a microphone, I will start with questions online first. If you have a customer-related question, please see one of our team members here today. Customer-related queries received online will also be responded to by our customer service team.

So Nathan, do we have any online questions for item 2?

Yes, Craig. We do have some online questions. And the first question comes from Michael Harris. "Why should I or other Telstra customers stay with Telstra when you continually fail to provide the core services of business with continued degradation and failing of the Telstra network in the Greater Hills district? When issues are reported Telstra can't do anything unless the customer is on site and able to waste a large amount of time to help resolve it. Given the fact we pay you to maintain and improve the network, why should we need to do your job for you?"

Thank you, Mr. Harris, and I'm sorry that you haven't experienced the service that you expect from Telstra. And I'd certainly like one of our team members to follow up with you after the meeting. We do have a very large complex network. We have more than 240,000 of fiber. We have more than 7,000 exchanges, 8,000 towers, 160,000 poles. So it is a very complex exercise to operate that network every day of the year. Having said that, we're very proud in the quality of our mobile network and we're very keen on continuing to invest in that. Vicki talked about, in her presentation, the amount of investment we make every year to make sure we keep maintaining Australia's leading network. But as I said, I'm sorry you haven't experienced the service you expect and I'd like to follow up with you after the meeting.

Our next online question is from Bruce Bebbington. "Priority assistance. With the 24-hour response time under the code, we've had 24-day, 20-day and currently 8-day wait for the first available technicians with notice due to no mobile coverage and Telstra confirming the interim satellite solution does not work in our area. Is the Board happy with the response times for a priority assistance? And why are these delays so excessive?"

So priority assistance is a very important service, so effectively -- so rather, for other shareholders may not be across-ed it in the room and online, that's a requirement for people that have very difficult or challenging health problems that need special support and need to have access to a landline or a phone line. So we take that obligation very seriously. We've invested very significantly, over time. in making sure we honor that promise and that commitment. Again, I'm sorry that you haven't had the experience that you deserve. That's not an acceptable experience under Priority Assist. And again, I'd like to take that matter up with you separately or with our customer service team, so we can remediate that. But just to reinforce, that's an obligation we take very seriously and we've committed significant resources to make sure we can honor that promise and that commitment.

Okay. We'll take one more online question before moving to the floor. This question is from [ Joe Alvaro ]. "Why are Telstra customers who have not got computer access or who choose not to use online services being forced to manage their account online through charging them fees to receive a paper bill, asking them to use chatbots rather than accessing a live human staff member, receiving text messages from Telstra without being able to respond to them, et cetera? Surely these customers, many of them elderly and vulnerable people, people suffering trauma from scams, should not be treated unfairly in this way."

So thank you for that question, sir. And you've raised a number of points. And so let me try and make sure I deal with each of them in some detail. So just with paper billing, obviously, we do encourage our customers, wherever they can, to use our digital service and use our Telstra app. Our view is that provides, arguably, a better service and it's more convenient for many customers. It's important to say, though, of the paper bills that we issue, 70% of our customers don't pay for those bills. We are conscious of people that are unable to access a digital service or don't have the capacity to do so. So we're very mindful of that. As far as our call centers go, we have listened to the community about that. We have moved the answering of our calls in our call center for customers and small business customers back onshore, and we've made a very significant commitment to do that. Again, if you haven't received the service you expect, I'm sorry for that. But we have taken that feedback very seriously. In terms of customer service, more generally, I'm the first to admit that we have more to do. Having said that, we have invested very significantly improving the outcomes for our customers. We've simplified our product range. We're digitizing our core services. I've talked about moving the answering of our contact calls back onshore. We've taken full ownership of our retail stores. We're doing everything we can to improve our service. We do see our customers telling us that, notwithstanding the point that we've got more to do, that is coming through improved Net Promoter Scores. And as I mentioned in my opening comments, over the last 3 years, and maybe this is the best judge, the number of complaints that consumers and small business customers make to the telecommunications ombudsman has fallen by more than 2/3.

We'll now move to the floor and we'll take a question from microphone #2.

Chair, I have a lady named Natasha Lee with a question.

Good morning.

Thank you, Chair. Yes, Natasha Lee, shareholder. The presentation, I feel, some of your metrics, you're painting a glossy picture, sort of the more positive things. And whilst I'm not dissatisfied with the level of dividends you've paid and things like that, you talk about underlying EBITDA, and I don't understand the reasons for that. But actually -- but it's down. Your earnings per share also down, and that probably reflects the sort of flat lining of the actual share price, which probably shareholders look at more at this being the share price and the dividend. There are concerns. Now you've blamed a lot of this on your Enterprise, like, Enterprise side of the business. And I'm not sure whether all that can be attributed to that. And you talk about your strategy. I'm concerned about the ability to really deliver to improve those metrics, which are going to see a movement of the share price, say, back up to $4 where it probably should be. You also talk about AI, and whilst businesses are moving towards AI and the like, and probably reflecting the last online question, there is a concern, as far as I'm concerned, that when you use these platforms, you've given like half a dozen options, and it's very difficult to navigate and time-consuming and you sort of can [ be ] knocked down a rabbit hole if you select the wrong option. And you got to come back out and go back in, all those sorts of things. So also I would ask, to what degree is this technology being tested on a wide range of people? Like I feel that sometimes these things are developed by 20-, 30-year-olds who are quite tech-savvy, not like including myself, the majority of these people who tend to be in the bit older age bracket and have a degree of tech-savviness, but nowhere near sufficient easily navigate these platforms. So there's sort of a number of parts at a question about the performance and your strategy moving forward, so.

Okay. Thank you, Natasha, and thank you for your question, and you've raised a number of issues there. So I'll do my very best to make sure I get to each of them. Firstly, on AI. So we do believe that, that can fundamentally transform the organization, including customer service. And so we are employing AI in a couple of areas, and I'll give you an example. So one of the challenges with the contact center is it's a very hard job to do well. And in most contact centers, because you have quite high staff turnover. So the more quickly we can train our people and get them up to speed, the better outcomes for you as a customer. What one of our AI initiatives allows us to do is that it effectively summarizes a range of policies, procedures and outcomes so when a person takes a call from you on the contact center, they can use that IA (sic) [ AI ] to give you a more specific and direct and better answer. We're also trialing AI where -- and sometimes this happens, and it's not ideal. You may have to go back to the call center more than once or several times. And it is frustrating for customers to say, well, I've spoken to 3 or 4 different people and you don't really understand the history of the earlier call. So with now using AI, which allows a quick summary for the call center operator to understand what you've said and gives them a 1-sentence summary so they can respond more quickly to your query, so we are being careful in how we introduce it because obviously, the quality of AI depends on the quality of data. We did have a very long discussion at our Audit and Risk Committee yesterday to work through how -- making sure we get that right. But I do think it has the potential to improve service outcomes for our customers and, frankly, for many of our employees, make their jobs more interesting and fulfilling. On the flatlining of our results, so this year's result, and in my presentation, you're quite right, I talked about underlying EBITDA. And in our view, that's the best measure of the underlying performance of our business. And I mentioned in my opening remarks that, that improved consecutively over the last 3 years. It is fair to say, and I think Vicki touched on this in her presentation, we did have some large one-off items this year that impacted the very bottom line or our net profit after tax, which is a number you referred to. We do believe the $1 billion number or the underlying number is a better picture of underlying performance of business, but like I said, we did have some large one-offs. Regarding the share price, I'd just like to reinforce with you that we're very much aligned with your desire to grow the value of this business and to improve dividends over time. And again, one of the good things that we've seen recently over the last 3 years is growth in our dividend, which I talked about in my opening remarks. I just do want to make the point that the remuneration structure for our senior executives is totally aligned with your interests on growing the value of our Enterprise. Around 75% of our variable remuneration is made available to our senior executives in some form of equity. And the majority of that only vests and only vests after 4 or 5 years if we've been able to meet the hurdles on total shareholder return. Regarding the individual performance that you mentioned in each of our businesses, sorry, this is a long answer, but you asked a number of questions, and I want to come to each of them. I'm -- we were really pleased with pretty well all of our businesses. Our mobiles business, which is a very large business, grew its underlying EBITDA by 9% over the prior year, which is an outstanding result for our shareholders. And apart from Enterprise, each of our other major segments also grew their underlying earnings. Enterprise was disappointing, and Vicki and I both spoke about that in opening remarks, and we've got some hard work to do to turn around that business. So just to reinforce my point, we're very much aligned with you, as shareholders, in growing the enterprise value of Telstra over time. Thank you.

We will go to microphone #1.

Chairman, I'd like to introduce Don Walker to speak.

Chairman, I'm a shareholder. I've got a couple of questions, Mr. Chairman. Firstly you've got 280 stores throughout Australia. Please, can I have the total revenue for year '24 for all those stores in revenue? My #2 question is my phone bill. Normally, I pay that towards the end of the month. Now for the landline, I've got to pay in advance. I'm going to pay the rental in advance and phone calls in advance. Why is that please, Mr. Chairman? Why has that all changed?

Thank you, sir, for your question. So we don't disclose publicly the revenue from our stores. They are a very important avenue, though, for our customers. And as I mentioned, I think in an earlier answer to my question, one of the changes that we've made in recent times is take back full ownership of those stores because we understand how important they are to the customer's experience. I'm not familiar with the particular product you're in, sir. But can I ask that, if you don't mind, that I get someone from our customer service team to speak to you later to better understand the point that you're making?

Sorry, sir, but paying in advance for the landline, I don't know why it's all changed. Because most of us have mobile phones, which I do, and that's paid in advance. You've got to pay well in advance. But the landlines, that's rental in advance, which we haven't even used it yet.

Okay. Thank you, Mr. Walker. Vicki, do you want to give us a bit more color on the approach we take to the pricing of those plans?

Yes, absolutely. And thanks, Mr. Walker for your question. In some of the comments craig made earlier and I spoke about, we're in the process of improving the system. So it does involve migrating our customers to a new digital environment that actually, we can see through the results, delivers much better outcomes. As part of that transition, in order to simplify our products and services, all our products and services move to an in-advanced month in terms of the charge. So it does create that one-off change as we change over, but it does work the same way as our mobile services work. So it brings them consistently, treated in the same way. So that's the change that's going on. It's a one-off change as you change over and then mobile and landline services are set up the same way.

Great. Thank you, Vicki. Thank you, Mr. Walker.

We'll continue with questions on the floor, the next question from microphone #2.

Chair, I have [ Sue House ] with a question.

Good morning. I'm [ Sue House ] from the Australian Shareholders Association this morning. I'm representing 1,273 retail shareholders, and I hold proxies worth just under $71 million. I have 2 questions under this item. Would you like me to ask both now? Or rotate?

Why don't you ask them both together if that suits you best and then...

Mr. Chairman, there has been concern expressed by some defense analysts that in the event of an escalation of geopolitical tensions in the region, undersea cables might be the target of sabotage by bad actors. What is Telstra doing to protect these cables and defend any attack on them or their landing stations given that one is in Chinese, Hong Kong?

Did you want to ask your other question as well? Or do you want to do it one by one?

Yes.

Yes. Okay, sure. Okay. So it's a very good question because I think we all know the world's changing very rapidly and the geopolitical risk that perhaps we thought was the case 5 or 10 years ago is very different today. So we do have a regular update to the Board on that. In fact, we've got a paper in the coming Board meeting in looking at that. We are conscious of the risk in certain parts of the world. And some of those existing investments are long-term investments that aren't changed -- easily changed quickly. It is fair to say a lot of cable operators, given the changing geopolitical risk, in terms of the future investments they're making and where they lay their cable are being very conscious of that, including where they build their new landing stations, that's certainly an approach we're taking in terms of our undersea cable network. Today, notwithstanding the advent of satellites, I think the last data I saw was undersea cable still move 97% of the world's data around the world, so they're still very important. They are potentially exposed to some sort of risk. That's why it's also important to have redundancy. So again, one of the things that we look at as a subsea cable operator, and we do this, of course, terrestrially in Australia with our network, is to have more than 1 option available in terms of subsea cable networks coming into Australia. So that if we were to lose 1 for an accident or a nefarious reason, we'd have a capacity to deal with that. So in a sense, we have the infrastructure we have. The world's changing very quickly, but we're very conscious of the points you've raised, and in my view, dealing with that on the front foot.

My second question is Telstra seems to be narrowing its scope of business to focus on its core. Your share of Foxtel and Telstra Ventures are up for sale. Can you explain the commercial and retail shareholder implications, please? Will there be any special dividends as part of the result?

So you mentioned our investment in Foxtel and news have announced publicly that they're undertaking a strategic review of that investment, which may or may not lead to a sale. If that were to lead to a sale at a reasonable price, we think that would be a sensible move or decision to make on your behalf as shareholders. From time to time, the importance of certain assets and their contribution to the value proposition we make to our peers does change. We don't believe, necessarily, notwithstanding -- I think the management Foxtel have done an outstanding job in managing that business. It's not clear to us long term that, that remains a part of our core business. The Board believes, as does Vicki, focus on our core business is the right thing to do. We're very pleased with the quality of our core business, and we think we can deliver the returns to you as shareholders by delivering growth through that core business. If from time to time, we were to make some disposals and they were significant enough to warrant the return of capital to shareholders, we would do that. And we've done that in the past when we sold down a large share of our towers business. We returned much of that capital back to shareholders through buybacks of our shares. Thanks, Sue.

Thank you. We'll stay on the floor. Microphone #3.

I have [ Erica Van Els ] with a question, please.

I'm a Telstra shareholder of over 40 years and a Telstra customer for over 50 years. My question concerns risk to shareholders of Telstra's systematic failure in dealing with complex complaints. In 2018, I addressed the AGM because I had no working phone service for years, I still have no working phone service. My [ Internet ] was with another provider. When the nbn came in, I moved my Internet to Telstra. In August this year, my Internet was cut off by Telstra without any notification. Later, I found it was for an unpaid disputed bill for services not received, which had accrued because I had been advised and directed by reputable suitable bodies, including fair -- New South Wales Fair Trading, TIO and the Minister's office not to pay, which I can verify. And now I am isolated without any mode of communication service. Each time either contact Telstra about this, Telstra sends an automated response, opening a new complaint which tells me to ring them when I do not have a working phone. Also historically, they pass my matter from person to person with no one reading my file. There's no continuity and they close cases without resolution. The only person who knows the history of the matter is me, no one at Telstra is interested in my lived experience. Is this an inherent problem? No Internet or no working telephone service, Telstra clearly can't provide basic services to me, someone who lives in Vaucluse, Sydney. Is there an inherent problem? I am another example of a customer being traumatized and harassed because Telstra does not have in place a system to resolve complaints other than the quick fix. My case is another reputational risk for Telstra. There is a risk to shareholders because Telstra is not able to provide basic communication services and threatens vulnerable people. Could you explain why we should value the shares of the market value when it is clear there are inherent problems of taking a matter like mine to conclusion and providing communication services to all people. There is a body of people out there that should concern shareholders. Telstra's reputation is at stake. Telstra claims to be Australia's foremost communication company, yet I have not been given a way to communicate with them.

Thank you for your question. Firstly, I'm sorry that you've had the service outcome that you've had. And I'm sorry also that you feel like the only way you can get addressed is to come to the Annual General Meeting and go...

You didn't get addressed in 2018. I was here in 2018.

I'm sorry, madam, I don't recall that particular question. But again, I apologize for the service you've had. Again, I'm sorry that the only way you feel you can get addressed is to come to the AGM and speak to the Board directly. So can I please ask, if you're able to, that we get the senior management member of our team to sit down with you after the meeting and go through your issues and make sure we address them. And again, I apologize.

[indiscernible]

I understand. Thank you.

We will move back to online questions, Craig. And this question comes from [ Joe Alvaro ]. Regarding past concerns from shareholders, the resources were being used to campaign for political issues like the Yes Vote in the voice referendum, and that some managers were playing politics through the company and spending time to campaign to abolish Australia Day through the CEO's public stance that she is not proud of our national holiday. Have efforts being made to focus more on the prime function of Telstra with a view to not only aiding leading diverse Telstra customers who have different political views to Telstra managers?

Okay. Thank you, sir, for that question. So Firstly, just let me comment on Australia Day, and this is part of our enterprise agreement that we've just renegotiated with our employees, and they've asked for the choice to make a decision on whether they celebrate Australia Day on the given day or another day. And we allow our employees to make that choice. That's a matter for them. As far as the voice campaign goes, I know there are a range of views on that. And there are people that don't support the decision that the Board made on that issue. I just do want to make the point that the Board did consider this matter very carefully. We did not make that decision because of particular views of the senior management team or the Board. We made that decision because we thought it was in the best interest of the company. Telstra has had a long history of supporting reconciliation and that is important to us. And I just want to make the point that a key part -- or key parts of our reconciliation program are about working with indigenous or First Nations peoples, to improve their opportunity to get gainful employment, including in remote Australia. And we also have significant initiatives that we undertake with First Nations people around digital inclusion, digital training, which we do for many Australians. So again, I understand, there are a wide range of views on that. There are people that don't agree with the choices we made as a Board. I just do want to stress that we did consider those views very carefully, and we made a decision that we thought was in the best interest of the company.

Thank you. We will continue online, and this question comes from [ Bruce Bebbington ]. Overseas contact centers. Telstra still maintains customer contact centers in Mumbai and Manila. 1 (800) 62 709 is a fault escalation. And I spoke to them yesterday and after hours, PSTN copper faults are still handled by staff in Manila. How many customer and business contact centers are still overseas? And when will these customer contact centers be brought to Australia?

So again, I will reiterate the point I made before, but just before I go to that, we do have some specialist calls that are still dealt with from offshore call centers. We did hear and listened to the feedback we got from our customers, including a range of AGMs, that you would prefer those calls to be answered in Australia. And so the very vast great bulk of calls that we take from Australian consumers and small businesses are now handled onshore in Australia.

The next question is from [ Stephen Mayne ]. Thank you, Niek Jan van Damme for his 6 years of service on the board. It is always helpful for investors to have access to some exits perspectives from retiring independent directors. In his final contribution as a Telstra Director, could Niek Jan please comment on what he regards as the best decisions Telstra made during his time on the Board? And does he have any regrets? Also, why is he going after 6 years? And could offer some reflections on how the chair succession was handled over the past 18 months?

So thank you, Mr. Mayne. You've raised a number of questions there. So let me try and deal each of those in turn. So thank you for also acknowledging Niek Jan's contribution to the Board. Niek Jan joined us in 2018 at the AGM in October in that year, and he's made a very, very significant contribution over a period of significant change. And one of the benefits of Niek Jan and indeed, Eelco and Roy is that they bring significant telco expertise, including from other markets. And you'd expect, as a part of the departure of Niek Jan given his personal decision to retire from the Board, that we spent a fair bit of time with Niek Jan, understanding his perspectives as an outgoing director. Niek Jan, of course, I can't remember the number of Board meetings you've attended Niek Jan, over 6 years, but there are many has also always rather been very clear on sharing his views and challenging management in the Board about wherever areas they can improve. Just on director tenure, and that's, again, a very good question from you, Mr. [ Mayne ]. There are a range of different views on how Board should approach that. We don't have set Board limits. We know some boards do. One view is they provide an end date to encourage change and movement in the Board. Another view is sometimes they can say, well, you've got a term limit of 9 or 10 years, and I expect to be on the Board for that period of time. That's not the view we take. We'll have some directors that may be effective directors for 9 or 12 years. We have maybe got some directors who join us for a period of 6 years, are very, very good directors, but the strategy of the business has changed. And therefore, we need a different capability set around the board. That's not the case with Niek Jan. Niek Jan's decided to make a personal decision. And again, I thank you, Mr. [ Mayne ], for acknowledging the contribution Niek Jan's made over the last 6 years.

We will return to a question from the floor, and I'll take a question from microphone #1.

Chair, I would like to introduce as [indiscernible] to speak.

I have been a customer far longer than I've been a shareholder, and it's not my purpose here to bag you. I'd like to acknowledge some of the work you've done, but there are plenty of problems arising from customer service. And I've experienced just like that lady from Vaucluse has. And when Mr. David Thodey he was here, I complained to him. Some things happened, a lot of things didn't happen. I sent him a paper by a Harvard professor, Chris Argyris, teaching smart people how to learn. And he read it within an hour, got back to me. He said, thank you, and I engage in defensive reasoning. And I think this is what happens at Telstra meetings and in the services that you provide. So you keep talking about customer service. My local shop in Randwick was closed. And then I used to go to Bondi Junction, didn't get much service there. They looked at my account, oh, we escalated, technical this, this, this, but they wouldn't give me a number to ring back. I had to appear in person. Finally, I found a place in George Street. Now that George store is closed. When I tried to find out where they are, I went to a World Square store. And they looked at me, "Oh, it's there somewhere." Where? I mean, what sort of customer service is this? Can I ask you how much money do you spend on advertising every year, please? Because I think it's becoming more a marketing exercise, giving the impression that you're doing a great job and profits when the service is not there. It's an embarrassment. I'd like Telstra to become a model of excellence, not just within Australia, but a universal model. And when I go to an Apple Store, the manner in which they provide help and service is excellent. My experience is in Randwick, Bondi Junction and George Street were appalling until I found 1 person. And then I thought, okay, I've got his e-mail address, I've got his number. When I need it, I was told that my Telstra points or something, going to expire. So I said, look, I'll go to the George Street store or ask him how to address and overcome the loss of those points. Couldn't find him. I went to the World Square. They couldn't tell me where he was. I sent him e-mail request, didn't get a reply. So what sort of customer services is this? I mean, you keep talking. So how much money do you spend advertising? Can you give me a figure, please?

So thank you, sir. And again, I'm sorry you haven't got the service you expect. We don't disclose how much we spend on advertising, like we don't disclose a number of items and individual parts of our profit and loss. Just regarding our store footprint, though, because clearly, you haven't received the service you expect, and I'm sorry for that. And again, we have people available today, who are very happy to sit down with you. I'm really keen to hear your feedback. On our store footprint, like any store footprint, from time to time, we will renovate or find that it makes more sense to put a store in a different place because it's more convenient for customers. I'm not sure what we disclosed on our website in terms of the location of our stores. We do make that clear. But again, I'm sorry for your service store. But one of the changes we've made, which has led to an increase in our staff numbers and has led, in fact, to a high cost is by taking full ownership of all our stores. Some of them were franchised and owned by other agents. So we -- part of the step process to improve that experience was, first, to take full ownership and now invest improved service outcomes. Clearly, you haven't had that experience. I'm sorry for that. I'm very happy for people to speak to you afterwards so that we can remediate that. Sorry, can we just...

When Mr. Tony was in office, I think the figure for advertising was something like $235 million. And I assume it would be much more now. And what are we getting? We're getting all this marketing hoopla but not the service. And not 1 person in the Bondi store, the Randwick door could give me an answer. They said, all we've escalated, it's a technical flaw, something or other, whenever. I had to go in person. And then, of course, trying to meet the same person that I talked to the last time wasn't available. What sort of a joke do you pull on us? We've supported you all our life, like the other lady who said she's been a customer for 50 years. Well, I've been a foundation shareholder and a customer. I don't want to go to another network. I would like to see Telstra become a model excellence, as I said before. And I talked to Mr. Thodey about it, sent him a paper. He'd read it and he said thank you and he'll circulate to his talk. And he said, "Yes, I engage in defensive reasoning," I mean how rare is there for a Telstra CEO to acknowledge something like that? I mean, it's incredible. And who do you get your strategic advice from? Any of the 4 consulting firms? I mean, they're found to be wanting, as we've discovered, repeatedly discovered. Their own organizations are in a dystopian mess. And to get advice from them and paying for it is adding insult to injury. I mean what's going on? How do we address these issues. They're so fundamental. And it's our money that's being spent to make fools of ourselves.

Again, sir, I'm sorry that's your experience. I appreciate that we've got more to do on customer service, and that's an ongoing journey. I can assure you, notwithstanding your personal experience, and again, I apologize for that, we're investing very significantly improving our customer service. It's not perfect. It's far from it. We've got more progress to make, but we are seeing substantial improvements in the areas I said, and its continued focus going forward. Thank you, sir.

We'll take our next question from microphone #2.

Chair, I have [ Peter Starr ] with a question.

Welcome, Craig. You'll know that I'm a pretty hard task master and I think you've got some big shoes to fill, given your 2 predecessors. But I'll await your performance, and I'll judge it accordingly.

That's true.

Just a couple of things, probably more directed to the CEO Vicki. Glad to see that you got back from North -- South Korea, that's right. Yes. Blue jacket instead of the yellow jacket, that's very good. Now some issues that were raised by the previous shareholder. I found out the store there in George Street, just by accident myself, but I know we've moved it to Pitt Street for those who don't know. It's temporary, but it is coming back. You'll be pleased to hear, ladies and gentlemen, it is coming back better than bigger. And I hope it will be just as successful as it was when it was there. Some other issues that I raise on behalf of myself and the shareholders I represent is that we don't like to see turn on a current affair, and there it is, there's an issue with Telstra or there's an issue with Telstra or there's this issue. And I've listened to some of the other shareholders speak. I think I don't need to turn on -- or for a shareholder to send me a text or a video and said, "Mr. [ Starr ], have you seen this?" And Vicki is well aware that I raised these issues directly with her, and I'm privileged to have that communication. I must say, too, that your Chief of Staff, Jen Bryce, has been really helpful. But a couple of things. What are we doing in relation to making certain that we do not have this customer issue, whether it be from one customer or 0.3%? Maybe that's something that Vicki could address. And the other thing I want to talk about is the loyalty program. Now I was pleased to meet Brad, who took over -- Michael Ackland, how are you. We're talking about there, I think -- and I've raised this on a number of occasions about the rewards or the loyalty program. I think it needs a complete overhaul to make its relevance for 2024.

Okay. Thank you, Peter, and nice to see you again. So welcome to the AGM. So I think I've dealt -- I understand the point on the closure of the George Street store. I also really like it. Sometimes to renovate and improve things, you have to close things and reopen them. So -- and I understand the point around the importance of the store network to our customers. From time to time, customer experience has been aired in the media. I mean that's the world we live in. Obviously, the best way to solve that is to not have those poor customer experiences in the first instance. I hear the feedback today. I think we're making improvements. I know we've got a way to go, so I accept that. On the Telstra loyalty point scheme. I'm glad you raised that because we now have more than 5.7 million of our customers involved in that scheme. So clearly, it's very popular and has landed well with most of our customers. We do regularly ask our customers how they feel about that scheme. We do have good feedback, but I'm sure we can always improve it. And clearly, you've got some views on how we might do that. So again, Peter, [ I'd ] be very happy for someone to meet with you after the meeting and hear your views in more detail, so we can make it as good as we can.

We'll stay on the floor and take the next question from microphone number 2 again.

Chair, I have [ Natasha Lee ] with a question.

I promise this is much easier. Look, congratulations on your ability to reduce your emissions, greenhouse gas emission status. I know that you are looking at or exploring other technologies and opportunities to further reduce emissions, which is great, and it's something which you should be doing. I was just curious, if you can explain the strategy, what are the metrics are you looking at, the payback, value for money type of issues, which goes into the thinking to invest in these technologies?

Great. Thank you. Another very good question. Thank you, Natasha. So obviously, this is a really important matter for the company and indeed the country, and we take climate change very seriously. It's impacting our network every day as we speak. And so the way the Board and senior management think about that challenge is weighing twofold. One, we've got a responsibility and an obligation to remove -- reduce, rather, our carbon footprint, which I'll come back to. And then as we go through -- once the company goes through the change to a different energy mix, obviously, there are some risks around that, and we need to make sure our network is as resilient as possible. Because obviously, it's very difficult to provide the network we do without access to power and energy, and we're a big user of power and energy. Coming back to the first point on emissions. So we have made a recent change on our Scope 1 and 2 emissions. And Scope 1 and 2 emissions, many people will be across the detail of actually our direct emissions that we caused to happen and our energy that we consume. We have had a target to reduce those over 2019 base level by 50%. We increased that target more recently, and so this is a target by 2030. We increased that target to 70% recently. And the reason we've done that is we do feel with -- a challenge in Telstra is it's constantly changing technology. One of the benefits is often the new technologies that come on stream are a lot more energy-efficient. And so for example, it's a topical issue, 4G and 5G tend to be a lot more energy efficient than 3G. So we do feel like we've got significant opportunities to further lower our footprint, our carbon footprint. We invest significantly in doing those. And there's an added benefit by doing that because actually it lowers our energy costs, and that's obviously an important cost for shareholders.

Okay. And as far as investments on things like batteries and solar panels, do you have a payback ratio or payback period on those sorts of investments?

So one of the approach we've taken -- and Vicki, jump in if you'd like to give more detail. One of the approach we've taken is pretty well every investment we make in the company now is to understand its carbon footprint and therefore, include that in the way we think on a day-to-day basis. Batteries are important for a range of reasons, including the resilience point I mentioned before. One of the challenges we face in our network is because it draws down on energy consumption across a very big large company -- the country, as we all know. And particularly, you can have an energy fault, or in a natural disaster, often energy falls away, and therefore it's very difficult for us to generate mobile tower capacity, because it requires energy to do that. So what we've done with our battery program, and we invested very significantly in this, is batteries obviously provide a cleaner form of backup energy in the event that energy goes down, particularly, say, for example, a natural disaster. So energies (sic) [ batteries ] are a cleaner form of backup than, say, diesel generation, very obviously. And we're making a significant investment in improving that battery backup. And the way we think about that is the importance of the quality of the service to our customers, but equally, people use Telstra because they depend on our mobile network. And so having backup capacity that's using clean energy is very important. So we do think through the economics, and as I said, increasingly, in almost every major decision we now make in Telstra is we think through the energy footprint and the consequences that might have.

Okay. Thank you.

Now on the floor, microphone #1.

Chair, I'd like to introduce Kerry Croydon to speak.

Thank you for this opportunity. I'm a long-term shareholder and client of Telstra. Basically grateful for the support I've had over many decades from Telstra for your services, including priority assistance. I have 2 questions. First, I'd just like an indication about your relationship, if still ongoing, with Aldi. And secondly, your relationship with NBN. I still cling to my landline. I'm comfortable with it and perhaps slightly more trusting than my iPhone. And I just get besieged with attempted scam attempts on the landline, cold calls. The opening statement is invariably, "what's your Internet service like?" And if I say something like, "Oh, it seems okay, maybe a bit slow". And then the claim is always, I'm ringing from Telstra or I'm ringing from NBN, and then unfolds a very extended psychological management of me, reassuring me that they can improve that service. So I'm also interested, besides your relationship, if it still is ongoing with Aldi, your relationship with NBN, and how to protect we old people where your independence is really totally dependent on having trustworthy and reliable communication services from Telstra. Thanks.

Thank you, Madam, and you've asked some really important questions. Can I go to scams first, because I think, obviously, this is a really important issue for the whole community. I think unfortunately, too many of us either have family or friends or know of people where trusting and decent people like yourself have others have sought to take advantage of you with criminals online. It's a really, really awful thing that's happening in our community. I've talked about the seriousness with which Telstra takes that. I mentioned, in my opening comments, our Cleaner Pipes initiative. The federal government, you may have read, is taking this also very seriously. So this needs to be a team effort by corporate Australia to work with government and the community as best we can to address that risk. So it's a really important issue that you've raised. And as a community, we've just got to keep investing to protect our innocent people. On Aldi, I think it was Aldi, was that -- sorry, my hearing is getting not so good as I get older, as young as I look. So Aldi, we have a wholesale relationship, where we provide them a mobile service capacity. Aldi then determine the relationship they have with the customer, the pricing they charge and the like, and that's an ongoing important relationship that we have with Aldi. On NBN, they are a very important partner of ours. We take that relationship very seriously. We work very hard at it. In fact, we recently met as a Board with the Chair of the NBN and the acting CEO, just to demonstrate the significance of that relationship and to hear firsthand at a Board level how the Chair and acting CEO of that relationship thinks about the relationship with Telstra. I know Vicki and other members of the senior management team spend a significant time on that, because we actually have to partner together to deliver the outcomes that you expect as consumers. So I think I've answered all the comments and questions that you made, but I think the point you've raised on scams is a really, really important one. And we're working as hard as we can with government and others to protect as many of Australians as we can. Thank you.

We'll now return to online questions. And this question is by [ Peter Calliero ]. Why is it in the past 2 years, Telstra's mobile plans increased in price at a higher rate than Telstra's costs?

So from time to time, we do increase or make price changes on our mobile plans, and we did that more recently. I'd just make the point -- or first point I'd make is we do make those decisions very carefully, and they're very considered decisions, especially in the current climate, and I referred to this in my opening remarks when the cost of living pressures are so acute. And also, I mentioned that there's a whole range of programs or initiatives that we undertake to support Australians who may be doing tough to stay connected. And one of those is our base starter mobile plan where we provide a significant discount to pensioners and veterans. And indeed, the pricing of that plan did not increase in our recent plan increases. And in fact, we also provided greater data for that plan. Price changes, as I said, are never very welcomed by customers. Having said that, it's been very clear in the meeting today that quite rightly, your standards are very high. And I talked about in my opening remarks, as Vicki did, about the criticality of connectivity. It's almost an essential service to every Australian because of the way we rely on that. Now what does that mean for Telstra and our shareholders? That means we have to make very long-term large investments of capital to deliver on that standard that you expect. And I think Vicki may have mentioned in her opening remarks, over the last 10 years, we've spent more than $40 billion in capital to deliver that outcome. To attract the capital that's necessary to make that investment requires an adequate return from shareholders, and I mentioned that in my opening remarks. And if we're going to keep investing the amount of capital that's required to deliver the leading mobile network and the quality of service you expect in terms of the network, then from time to time, we need to make those price changes to give us the confidence to make that investment. I should say -- sorry, just to finish, and I understand that price changes are not ideal, particularly in the current environment. But if you look back over the last 10 years, telco prices have been rising at a much slower rate than inflation.

Our next online question is from [ Deeann Denise Green ]. This is a comment rather than a question. I'm so relieved I didn't travel to the city to attend the meeting. I was expecting insightful questions and answers. I am listening to gripes, which I must say have been addressed in a patient and respectful manner. The Telstra Board has given great presentations. The underlying Telstra business is clearly being well managed. Thank you to the Board and senior management team.

Okay. Thank you. I'll take that -- I appreciate that comment. I also am very respectful. This is the one opportunity that retail shareholders get an opportunity to stand up and give your thoughts and views on the Board and we take that really seriously. So we appreciate your participation and coming here today or being online and asking those questions, but also I'm very grateful for your comments, [ Deeann ]. Thank you.

The next online question is from [ Peter Calliero ]. Since the Optus data breach, has Telstra increased its own data security? And if so, how?

So cybersecurity is obviously something we take very seriously. I mean, keeping Australians safe is at the heart of everything we do. We've got very capable people who work tirelessly to protect our critical infrastructure and your data. And we have significantly increased our investment in cybersecurity in recent times. I mentioned in one of my other answers to an earlier question, our Audit and Risk Committee met again yesterday, it meets regularly, and we spend a lot of time on cybersecurity as we pretty well do at almost every Audit and Risk Committee. It's really important that we get that right. I should also say, we're always learning. I mean the challenge with this area is that there are some really bad actors from different parts around the world with very significant resources, who are constantly attacking enterprises and customers and trying to take advantage of them. And with a really sophisticated cyber-attack with those sort of resources, arguably, no company is immune to that risk. So it is something we take very seriously. When other companies do have the unfortunate experience of being breached, we learn from those. It's virtually the first question management expect to get from the Audit and Risk Committee in the following meeting. "We've seen a data breach here. How are we dealing with it? How do we know that we're protected from that same breach?" So I just want to reassure you, we understand how important it is to our customers. In fact, we understand how important it is to our country given the importance of the network to Australia. And we're really supportive of working with government and other corporations to make our country as strong and as well protected as we can from cyber-attacks.

We'll return to the floor. We have a question at microphone number 3.

Chair, we have a question from [ Al Marshall ].

The 2 most frequent topics that have come up today have been priority assistance and customer and call center services. So I have a question for Ms. Brady and a question for Mr. Ackland. Priority Assistance is a legislative mandatory requirement, for which Telstra gets nearly $300 million in taxpayers money each year. Mr. Ackland, how was that spent last year on repair, replacement and upgrades? And while you get those data, my question is a simple one for Ms. Brady. It's a true-and-false question. If I heard you correctly Mr. Dunn, you can see that Telstra still has call centers overseas, Manila and Mumbai?

We do still take some calls from overseas. But as I said...

True or false?

Yes, we do take some calls overseas. But if you don't mind, I'll just want to give justice to your question. The vast majority of calls by consumers and small businesses are now taken in Australia.

Right. On the 20th of May, when Ms. Brady put the boot into 2,800 Telstra workers, she said, "We have listened to our customers and returned all our call centers to Australia." Repeat the last 6 words, "all our call centers to Australia." Today, Mr. Dunn, you've conceded we still have call centers overseas. As Ms. Brady has known, she also has a call center in Hyderabad. Ten days after she made that statement, "We have returned all our call centers to Australia", I spent a weekend dealing with 4 faults staff in Hyderabad. Now just to be sure they're in Hyderabad, I asked them in English and in Hindi where they worked, and they all confirmed they worked in Hyderabad. Ms. Brady, true or false, on the 20th of May, when you said, "we have listened to our customers and returned all our care centers to Australia", was that true or false?

So thank you for your questions, sir. You've asked a range of questions. And Vicki is very, very careful with her language. I'll ask Vicki to respond if you'd like to, Vicki, but do you want to comment on that, Vicki, just to address the gentleman's question?

Yes, thank you for your question. So it was, I think, 21 May, when we made the announcements. What I have consistently said is we've returned answering our consumer and small business calls to Australia. We do have teams that do escalated faults still based in our offshore locations and our teams that do online chat for customers. So that's the position and where we're at.

So can I ask, as of today, we have returned all our call centers to Australia. True or false?

Sir, I think Vicki has answered the question, I think, really clear that the great bulk of calls from consumers and small businesses are taken in Australia. There are certain fault lines that require a different approach, and some of those are still based offshore. I hear your feedback. So we've taken that on board. Can I go to your other comments, if I may, that you raised in your questions?

Priority Assist.

Well, I think we've answered the question you've asked. The point on -- you talked about Priority Assist. And so we do have an obligation that we take very seriously, which was discussed before. And so I acknowledge that commitment is very important. I think the number you referred to is a broader obligation. We have a universal service obligation, which has a range of different things that were compensated by the federal government for. That includes, for example, effectively making fixed line access available to all Australians. We largely do that through the NBN footprint. But for aspects of Australia that aren't served by NBN fiber or fixed wireless, we have an obligation to sustain a copper network. Now the point that we've been making more recently is with the advent of LEO satellites, and so Starlink is a good example of that, in our view, that's a much better technology, and it's proving to be so, to provide the sort of phone access in remote Australia. Copper is an aging technology. It's very hard to sustain its reliability. And so part of that obligation that you referred to goes well beyond Priority Assist. The position that we've been starting to discuss with management -- sorry, government, Vicki, you may like to add to this, is that obligation was decided upon many, many years ago, and the technology footprint we have today is very, very different. So we think it's in the national interest and our interest to reform the USO, and that's what we're starting to discuss with government. Vicki, did you want to add to that in any particular way?

Yes. If I could add a couple of comments, because you raised a point that, that number you've quoted is a broader number. It's not related to Priority Assist. The biggest part of that is our universal service obligation, which relates to providing fixed line voice services outside of the NBN's fixed footprint. So that involves about 7% to 8% of the country. And today, under that legislation that is many decades old, we are required to keep copper services running where they are available in that footprint. And so that's what the bulk of those funds relate to. We've been very clear with shareholders and with government. We're trying to minimize the loss on that to less than $100 million per annum. So we're working very constructively as the government goes through consultation on modernizing those universal service obligations.

Mr. Ackland, do we have the data?

So I think, sir, we've answered that question. I think the point is on the USO, it covers much more broader things than Priority Assist. And frankly, the outcome we have with the current arrangement is not economic for you as shareholders, and that's the point Vicki is making. We would like to renegotiate that in a way that provides a good outcome for Australia and Australian consumers, and also importantly, a good outcome for Australian shareholders -- Telstra shareholders, rather. And the new technology should allow us to do that. Thank you, sir.

We'll go to microphone number 2.

Chair, I have Bruce Bennett with a question.

Mr. Chair, thank you for your time to answer my question. My question is in relation to the rollout of the 5G broadband service. But before I say that, I'd like to say that the service I've had from your call centers has been excellent, the Australian-based ones. I'm also very impressed with the lack of outages that Telstra as an organization has had, unlike some of your competitors, and also the data security that you provide that some of your other competitors haven't been able to do. So while there's been some criticism of the company, I'm very happy with the overall business. However, my concern relates to a bit of the future and the fact that I'm now being offered 5G broadband by your competitors, mainly because my NBN service is on the -- is it HFC or HCF cable. And that always goes out. It always constantly. And I bring up Telstra, and they say, "Look, I'm sorry, we can't do much. It's the NBN." And in the old days, when I had my old mobile service, Telstra had been the whole show. If there was a problem, they would look at the exchange, they would send someone out to my house. And it was just perfect. It just never -- like it just kept on going. Now is it the NBN problem? Is it the HFC? Is it this? And I'm really keen to move across to your 5G broadband. I mean, that will mean I won't have a landline, but I don't need a landline. As the other questioner said, all my landline gets is all these scam callers. "I'm from NBN. I hear you've had an outage." And all they do is look at where Telstra outages have been and they bring you up and say, "you've had an outage, we're going to..." And NBN does nothing to prevent people calling. They blame -- oh, you've got to talk to Telstra, but there's nothing on their network, on their advertising to tell people, NBN never calls you. It's a terrible organization. And so I'm saying, I'd love to be able to adopt a 5G broadband service. Your competitors are already offering that to me. What's your plans to roll out that 5G broadband service and allow people to move away quickly from the NBN? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bennett. So there are clearly, even as a part of that broader NBN network, there are some technologies that still aren't ideal and that can be challenging. On fixed broadband, so that essentially means you can use mobile to beam into your home and that becomes your fixed broadband rather than using fiber or whatever. Clearly, you understand that. So we are rolling that out to some extent. It's not available to every suburb and every street. It does depend on the capacity to put small cells in your street, for example, which is not always straightforward with local councils. So if you don't mind, sir, it would be good to speak to you after the meeting and understand your physical location.

My point is that your competitors are currently offering it. I'm worried that Telstra is falling behind in what the market is changing. You're doing great stuff with Starlink, but you have major risk, as consumers get fed up with NBN, you're going to lose market share in that segment.

Understand, Mr. Bennett. And look, there are a range of considerations that we have to take into account when we consider whether we offer fixed broadband and how broadly we offer it across the country. And that's not always straightforward. So I hear your point, and we're very conscious of that. We have rolled more of that service out to more Australians across the country. But very happy to speak to you -- I hear your point on the competition, but also very happy with someone speak to you after the meeting and understand your location and let you know whether that's our intention or not. Thank you.

We'll take our next question from microphone #3.

Chair, I have [ Alan Carter ] with a question. Thank you.

Good morning. We've heard a lot of the positive results of the financials over the last 3 years. When do you envisage that will flow on to the share price?

So let me deal with that question. It's a very good one. So first point I'd make is we share your desire as a Board and senior management team, and I don't make that comment lightly, to drive up the value of the enterprise, Telstra. We have seen that come through in higher dividends. So I talked earlier about how the dividend has grown, compound annual growth over 4% over the last 3 years, and that is a function of the improved financial performance. I will come to your answer, sir. I understand that the share price this year hasn't achieved the same outcome as some others have on the market. That's a fair point. Share prices are a function of a range of different things. Sometimes they're outside of our control. Defensive stocks, which is the sort of category that Telstra sits within, like some other infrastructure companies haven't done as well as other stocks this year. And being very clear with you, the performance of our enterprise business this year, which was disappointing, hasn't helped that price. So having said all that, I understand your point. As I said before, senior management is very much aligned to get that outcome for you as shareholders. Around 50% of Vicki's target pay, if you like, and that of the senior management team is expected to be paid in some form of equity, 75% of variable remuneration, rather, that Vicki is entitled to is paid in some form of equity, and the majority of that will only vest, as I said earlier, if we deliver total shareholder returns that exceed a relevant hurdle. I'd also say that in addition to try and maximize your alignment on the point that you've made with the alignment of the senior management team and the Board, we also have minimum shareholder requirements that we need to meet. Vicki and Michael, for example, own more Telstra shares than 99% of our shareholders. So they are totally aligned in terms of that with you. We also -- and you may be familiar with this, so I'm sorry if I'm telling you what you already know, we also have minimum shareholder requirements for directors, nonexecutive directors, again, to cause maximum alignment with your interest in improving the value of the stock or share price over time. For the directors that held office over the past 12 months, their average shareholding was greater than 90% of the number of shares held -- sorry, was greater than shares held by 90% of our shareholders. So I understand your point. We're working very hard to improve our financial performance, but I do want to reemphasize, we're very much aligned with what you want to see as a shareholder. That's how we've restructured the remuneration of our management team, and that's how we're aligned in terms of the requirements to hold shares just like you do.

Thank you. It would be good to see you get back towards the $7 mark.

I hear you. Thank you, sir.

Our next question is from microphone number 1.

Chair, I have [ Kaz Kazim ] with a question.

Look, I'd just like to raise an issue that you raised that Telstra and other telcos haven't raised their prices by as much as they have more recently. And if you look at some of the evidence, critically acclaimed evidence issued by OECD, that some of the people working in Australia had the largest and the steepest decline in the earning capacity. And some of those people are like fire workers, firemen, nurses, police officers, and these are the people who are affected. They hold the community safe, et cetera, et cetera. But when you increase these prices, how often do you think of those that might be affected adversely. And I don't see any declines in your directors' fees or anybody else on the Board or Vicki. And the other thing I'd like to say is a program of customer service training. I mean, how do you train them? Is that regular training? Because my time goes right back to when I first attended the AGM was when the American, Sol Trujillo, was in charge. And then I dealt with, it was David Thodey, and then Catherine Livingstone was there for a while. I've forgotten whether she was Chairman or CEO, but she did. And we're still hearing the same problems about customer service. I mean, your increase (sic) [ expense ] in advertising has gone up, but the service hasn't. I don't want to bag some of the things that you've done. I think environmental issues like decreased emissions, et cetera, is excellent. But I think if you improve the customer service, you can easily decline the expenditure on advertising, because word of mouth is a terrific service. Go and see Vicki or meet somebody at the store. I mean that word of mouth is far more reliable as an indicator of good customer service than spending millions and saying, "Oh, what a terrific company we are", but the service doesn't add up.

Okay, sir. I think you've made that point before. So I don't think I can answer it any differently than I did before. Again, I hear you on customer service. We have more to do, but the facts are, since 2021, over the last 3 years, the number of complaints from consumers and small businesses about Telstra to the telecommunications ombudsman have fallen by 2/3. Does that mean our customer service is where it needs to be? No, it's not. It's clearly not and we've got more to do. But we've invested very significantly. We've made significant changes, and I think that's a very good barometer to demonstrate that we are making progress, notwithstanding that we've got more progress to make as you've clearly enunciated.

Exhausted. The inquiries is not producing the results it should. Anyway, I'd like to be able to get your e-mails, Vicki and you, so I can send you some paper and literature to read on.

Very happy to have you share that with us after the meeting, sir. Thank you.

We'll turn to online questions. This question is another question from [ Bruce Bebbington ]. Missed appointments for repairs impact customer experience and also are at a cost to Telstra. The customer service guarantee standard stipulates that even if an appointment can't be met, the customer should be advised and that a penalty is payable if this does not occur or there is no attendance. What number of missed appointments are being experienced and has this increased or decreased? And what is the total cost of CSG payments for these? I also note that Telstra has refused to pay us for any missed appointments. Why?

So thank you, sir. So the customer service obligations or requirements are very clear under the law. If we don't honor those, then also the penalties or requirements for us to pay a fine are very clear under the law, and we honor those penalties. We may be talking about slightly different information or data. But recently, as a part of, I can't remember it's a recent Board paper or Audit and Risk Committee, we do measure or keep account of the number of credits that were required to give back to customers more generally and consistent. I know everyone is not happy with the service we deliver just yet, consistent with the reduction in complaints to the ombudsman that I talked about, that number has dramatically declined over the last few years. So again, sir, though, if you feel like we're not honoring that obligation, that is obviously important feedback for me, and we're very happy to follow that up with you after the meeting.

Next is another online question from [ Joe Alvaro ]. As a Telstra shareholder and customer, I do not consider customer service issues as gripes, but some of the most important issues that the Board should be paying attention to. Good service is good business, less poor publicity and increased profit. On this subject, why is a simple phone number not clearly visible on the Telstra website, so customers can easily access a live person when they have problems. Surely customer service issues can be reduced by allowing customers easy and fast access to help when they need it.

So again, thank you for your feedback, sir. We'll certainly review that. Again, I don't think I'm going to add much more to the comments I've made more generally on customer service. I would just say, though, as a part of the scorecard that we use each year to benchmark senior management's performance, on that scorecard, we include episode Net Promoter Scores, which is feedback from customers, rating by customers on whether that service has improved or not. That's included in the scorecard. If we do well on that or management do well on that, that supports their variable remuneration. If they don't, it doesn't.

Our next online question is from Stephen Mayne. Competitor TPG yesterday announced the $5.25 billion sale of its fiber assets to Focus, which is controlled by Macquarie Fund after being privatized a few years ago. Did we bid for these assets or were we not allowed to on competition grounds? What, if anything, will this transaction mean for our business and for the wider industry?

Again, thank you for your questions, Mr. Mayne. So we don't normally comment on whether we participate in transactions or not. But given it's happened or been announced, I make it very clear that we didn't participate in that process, and I suspect the ACCC would not have allowed us to in any event. As regards what it might mean for Telstra more broadly, obviously, we take the competition that we operate against very seriously. We never take them for granted. That may or may not change that competitive dynamic. Obviously, our focus is on providing the greatest value we can to customers. In terms of our InfraCo Fixed business, shareholders may recall that we made a decision over the last 12 months or so, I can't remember the exact period when we made that decision, Vicki, to retain the ownership in that business. Vicki has clearly enunciated why we made that decision. And part of that is the commentary that both Vicki and I talked about earlier in the meeting in our opening remarks about how important connectivity is and the growth in data and AI. And if you think about all of those things, we don't deliver the outcomes that consumers want or businesses want without great connectivity that requires investment. So we actually think one of the tailwinds we've got at the moment, if you like, is that growth in data and the demand for data and what that means for our business. People will take different views on the transaction that was announced yesterday. One view is it just reinforces the value of that business for you as shareholders and reinforces the decision management made to retain it.

We'll do one more online question. This is yet another question from [ Bruce Bebbington ]. The copper continuity obligation as part of the USO is what requires that. As the CEO correctly stated, a requirement to maintain copper. Last AGM, I raised our forced migration to 3G NGWL, which was stopped by the Chairman. The CEO complaints team have stated, Telstra will not repair your landline, and we are currently being forced to Starlink satellite. Until the USO review is determined, why is Telstra refusing to repair the copper network and continually force customers to satellite?

So firstly, we've got very clear legal obligations under the USO, as Vicki and I both talked about, to retain the copper service. So if you feel like we haven't done that, I'm very happy to take that feedback on board after the meeting. Can we just talk about satellite, because I appreciate that people don't like making change, but we have tested the propensity or the capacity for satellite to deliver better services, particularly to remote Australia under a series of different weather events. And most of you will know copper and water don't mix well, and we do believe that LEO satellites can improve the quality of the service that can be provided, particularly to remote Australians, and that's something that we're taking very seriously. We offer the Starlink fixed broadband service. We're in further negotiations with other satellite companies. So we do think, as hard as it is changing technology, I know as I get older, changing technologies gets more and more frustrating and people don't like change. But some of these newer technologies are going to lead to much better outcomes for our customers. And obviously, we need to work with the community to help them understand that and help our customers transition to those better technologies.

We'll go back to the floor. Microphone #3.

Chair, I have [ Ericka van Aalst ] with a question. Thank you.

Thank you. Just going back to the question I asked earlier, which was not answered. I was asking about Telstra's systematic failure dealing with complex complaints, and is that an inherent problem. It was very nice of you to say that you have someone speak to me after the meeting. Thank you for that. But that really -- I had that 6 years ago. That could be seen as just brushing this matter again under the carpet, with respect to you, I'm just saying it could be seen like that. We have heard a lot of people, there's quite a few shareholders here with concerns about how Telstra is handling the customers' complaints. I really would like an answer to that question. Is this an inherent problem? For example, what percentage or number of complaints brought to Telstra by their customers have not been resolved after, say, 3 months? Does anyone have those statistics? I mean, with respect, to tell us, and you've said it twice that Telstra's complaints -- complaints taken about Telstra to the TIO have been reduced. I think it was 2/3. That all sounds very nice. But we have to remember that the TIO is an industry-funded ombudsman. It is not a government ombudsman, and it does not necessarily reflect on Telstra. That Telstra has improved their game. It could simply reflect what a mess the TIO has been and anybody who has tried to go through the TIO might like to also speak about that. So that doesn't necessarily reflect upon Telstra. I mean -- and I've been listening here today. I didn't realize you could talk for a little bit longer. I had my 2-minute speech prepared before. But here I am after 6 years, and I don't know if other people may be also like me in the shareholder audience, but besides everything else, I'm supposed to be a Priority Assist person, and I've got no working phone and no Internet. So with respect about the TIO, doesn't do it for me. And I would like an answer to the question. It's very nice of you to have someone speak to me afterwards. But I really want to know, and I think the shareholders have a right to know, is this an inherent problem? And what percentage or numbers of complaints brought to Telstra about Telstra are unresolved after like 3 months? Thank you.

Okay. Well, thank you again for the question. I think it's very similar to your earlier question, and I don't discount the importance of it, and I understand your frustration. When we do meet with you after the meeting, we'll take that very seriously. We will take your feedback onboard. Can I also assure you that we do, as a Board, we get a regular update on customer service, on complaints, on the time it takes our call center to answer the phone, a range of different issues. We have a report on our Board meeting later this afternoon. All that data is provided to the Board. We look at it very seriously. I appreciate you're not happy with your service. I understand your frustration. I've committed for someone to meet you after the meeting. We take it very seriously. We know we've got more to do. We're investing very heavily to improve customer outcomes.

Microphone #2.

Chair, I have [ Enzo Prata ] with a question.

Good morning, Mr. Chairman. My name is Enzo Prata. I'm a shareholder. When Optus suffered its security data breach a couple of years ago, the main problem was that, on its network, it had a trove of customer data that, in my view, should not have been there. For example, a telco has every right to ask a new customer, for identification purposes, what is his driver license number or passport ID. That's fine. But once the customer has been identified, this data should not be kept on file. So my question is, what are we doing about this? Do we have customer data on file potentially vulnerable to security attack no matter how strong our cybersecurity protections are? Or do we delete this data, so that there is nothing to steal?

Thank you, sir. It's a very good question. And so as I said before, when, unfortunately, others either in Australia or elsewhere do suffer from a cybersecurity incident, we take it very seriously and seek to learn from that. Regarding data storage, so one of the challenges we have is there are certain data under the law, and unfortunately the laws differ by state, that requires us to keep certain data, whether we would like to or not. So we have legal obligations. That means we don't have a choice. But I take your point, particularly the data you referred to, it's really important that we do our very best to store that securely, make sure it's encrypted. We did a review following the Optus breach. We've further sought to improve procedures, tighten procedures, remove data that doesn't need to be held. So we're very much focused on that, because like you say, as I said earlier in my comments, despite very significant investment in cybersecurity, no company is immune to that risk. So you've asked a very good question, and we're working really hard to make sure we only store data that we need to keep to meet our legal obligations or service obligations and otherwise remove it from our systems.

Thank you very much. Just a quick clarification.

Of course.

This data is that we need to keep for legal reasons, it is stored offline, so that an attacker on the Internet cannot access it?

It depends. Some of that data can be stored offline. Some of it makes our customer service response very difficult to do in an effective way, because often, unfortunately, from a privacy point of view, we may need to identify you in a secure way, and therefore, we may need access to that data. We had that very question at the Audit and Risk Committee yesterday when we were discussing this issue. If we can keep some data offline because it's not needed regularly and it's very secure and we need to maintain its privacy, then from time to time we'll do that.

Thank you very much.