well a shareholder can basically appoint anyone it likes as a...

well a shareholder can basically appoint anyone it likes as a proxy for a shareholders' meeting.

If ANZ owned the shares, it could appoint me or Stephen Mayne or Syringe or anyone else as a proxy for the meeting.

The fact that they were prepared to do so, suggests three things. Firstly, that they owned the shares. Secondly, the appointment is some acknowledgement of the stock lender ( Opes clients ) having an "interest" in the shares. Which is unsurprising as the client would have the right to "unborrow" the shares at any time ( if they could repay the pseudo-margin loan ).

And thirdly, by doing so, ANZ would tend to conceal its own status as the actual owner of the shares by preserving the illusion to other shareholders, that the client who had lent the shares to Opes, was still appear to other shareholders to own them. Which would obviously be particuarly important to the likes of Thomas and Terpu.