Page 20, Read

A number that has moved the wrong way can always be measured against an older number. In September, Unaudited said it would read page 20 of Superloop's FY26 annual report, the page that carries Diversity and Inclusion, and the page on which a salary peg for Sri Lankan employees was disclosed once in FY23 and has not been mentioned since. The report has arrived. The peg is not on it. The average gender pay gap is: 10.4 per cent, up from 5.7, and set in the same sentence against 20.8 per cent from 2021-22. One of those movements is called an increase. The other is called a significant improvement. On 19 November, shareholders will be asked to approve $3.65 million of performance rights for the man running it.

We Said We Would Read It

The FY26 Annual Report runs to 156 pages. It is a separate publication from the consolidated financial and sustainability report released on 19 August, which Unaudited quoted last month, and it carries its own pagination.

Four words do not appear anywhere in it.

Peg. Distress. Float. Hyperinflation.

Nor do provident fund or gratuity, which is unremarkable in an Australian annual report and would have been remarkable in this one.

The FY23 disclosure, that Sri Lankan salaries were "pegged to a pre currency float AUD exchange rate to mitigate inflationary pressures they are experiencing", has now been absent from three consecutive annual reports. FY24, FY25, FY26. It was present in one.

"Cost of living" appears once in the entire document. Here it is, in the risk register:

"A lack of business confidence in the economy and cost of living pressures may delay or reduce current and future customer spend. Reduced spending may result in Superloop not meeting financial targets and earnings guidance."

In FY22 the phrase described what a crisis was doing to the company's staff.

In FY26 it describes what it might do to the company's revenue.

The words survived. The object moved.