13 February 2026
Explore how we exercise our ownership rights during the 2025 Australian Annual General Meeting season
AustralianSuper is Australia’s biggest active investor in the Australian share market1. The Annual General Meeting (AGM) season provides a key opportunity to exercise our ownership rights on behalf of AustralianSuper members by voting on our shareholdings.
Voting presents an opportunity to express our views on company matters that can impact investment value for members.
During the six months to 31 December 2025, we voted on:
- Over 1,100 ASX company resolutions, supporting approximately 90%. Of these around 400 resolutions were voted through our active approach (as described below).
- 170 ASX remuneration report resolutions, voting against approximately 12%.
- 11 ASX shareholder resolutions, supporting approximately 18%.
Our active voting approach
AustralianSuper applies an active voting approach to companies in our internally managed fundamental portfolios in the Australian shares asset class2. Approximately 90% of the Australian shares asset class are held in these fundamental portfolios.
Company engagement helps inform our voting decisions. For companies covered by our active voting approach, we typically engage with their board when we are considering voting against a company resolution to discuss our concerns prior to making our final decision.
Executive remuneration
Shareholders have the ability to vote on executive remuneration plans, and remuneration has featured as a topic of discussion in around 70% of our direct company engagements on ESG issues in 2025. Well-designed remuneration programs are important as they can encourage and reward senior executives for performance that supports investment value.
Our three underlying remuneration principles are:
- There should be appropriate pay for performance outcomes.
- Remuneration quantum should be cost-effective and not excessive.
- Remuneration disclosures should facilitate shareholder understanding of how these principles have been achieved.
Under the Australian Corporations Act, a company receives:
- a first strike if 25% or more of votes cast oppose the remuneration report.
- A second strike if the following year’s remuneration report also receives 25% or more opposition. A second strike automatically triggers a board spill resolution, requiring shareholders to vote on whether all directors who signed off on the remuneration report (except the CEO) must stand for re-election within 90 days.
In the 2025 AGM season we voted against two remuneration reports for companies in our fundamental portfolios in the Australian shares asset class.
Across the broader market, ASX200 remuneration strikes declined 16%, from 26 in 2024 to 22 in 2025. However, at least eight ASX200 companies narrowly avoided a strike in 2025, indicating investor concerns over their remuneration reports.
Shareholder Proposals
Shareholder proposals are non-binding resolutions which can be filed by shareholder groups who are seeking to raise a particular issue at a company’s AGM. They are typically used by shareholders to seek more disclosure, policy changes or changes in company practice.
Shareholder proposals shifted from climate change to nature related issues this AGM season, with eight nature-related proposals and three climate-related proposals. We consider shareholder resolutions on their merits based on members’ best financial interests.
Read more about our voting approach here
View our voting records here
References:
- Frontier Advisors, January 2025
- These are internal portfolios that are actively managed by our in-house Australian Equities team and exclude holdings in the Australian shares asset class managed by external fund managers, index managers, as well as internally managed quantitative strategies (which uses model-based systematic approaches to company selection)
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