Yesterday evening just as I reached home, a man walked up to our front door. He was trying to sell us a subscription to Optus’ phone and internet services. I thought about it for about 2 seconds and told him no thank you very much. I had signed up with Telstra for a year, I told him. Later that night after dinner, Theresa, Elysia and I flipped over a few advertising brochures, mainly for mobile phones. I flippantly told Theresa that we ought to switch when our contract ends, as Telstra may be heading for trouble. I don’t know what made me say that. Maybe subconsciously the idea has been building up, given the amount of negative press Telstra has been receiving lately. This morning, it was in the news again. Kim Beazley had accused John Howard of pulling a fast one, of not disclosing to the public how sick Telstra really is. It has been using reserves to pay dividends. The PM countered that it is perfectly acceptable to pay dividends out of retained earnings. He is right of course. Dividends may be paid out of profits, so says the Companies Act of Malaysia. I’m sure the Corporations Act 2001 says the same thing (must look it up). Profits need not be current year profits. Telstra is not alone in doing this. It is no big deal. It is a Big Deal when the company is not well and the government has been pushing company officials to talk it up. This was the accusation. The other accusation was that by keeping quiet, the PM was conveying a picture of health when it was really quite sick. Moms and Pops have been buying Telstra shares on the basis of this picture of health, and lately, Telstra has tanked. In the news this morning, the PM said he was duty bound, legally bound, to shut up. He was not allowed to disclose what he knew, as was required by some telecommunications act. No doubt that would be verified soon enough and if that was inaccurate he’d be fried. The other side is of course that as a listed company, Telstra should have disclosed price sensitive information (such as how much regulation is going to cost them) to the ASX, something they have not done. What they did instead was to tell the media that they would not have recommended the stock to their own mothers. Bottom line: Telstra is not well. Theresa’s mobile, my mobile and our home phones are all Telstra. Service shouldn’t be affected (the PM said Telstra is 99% fault free), but it made me think. Maybe I should wait around this evening, in case another one of those Optus canvassers walk up our front door again. He might get lucky.