Brambles dodged a bullet at its annual general meeting on Wednesday afternoon, with its remuneration report for 2017-18 narrowly avoiding a "strike".

The AGM took place against a backdrop of shareholder anger, with total shareholder returns at negative 17 per cent for the year to date, and law firm Maurice Blackburn launching a class action on Wednesday morning over the sudden downgrading of 2016-17 earnings and abandonment of 2018-19 targets that were affirmed until last year by former chief executive Tom Gorman.