It's nowhere near as troubling as Environment Minister Peter Garrett's, and is microscopic alongside the tragic tales of the four poor souls electrocuted while carrying out the Federal Government's $2.45 billion program. But it has caused me to question the low profile our society seems to attach to ethics.

I arrived home one day to be greeted with the happy news that our roof had been insulated.

"Beauty," I said, and asked how much it had cost us, unaware the Government was giving us all $1200 worth of insulation free.

"Nothing," my wife told me.

Even better. I could get used to this.

When I examined the paperwork the installers had left behind, and got out my tape measure, I noticed they had charged the full $1200 but had performed less than $600 worth of work.

They said they had been unable to gain access to a section of our roof to do the full job. So, they should have charged us for the work actually carried out. They must have made a mistake.

I rang the company, which appeared to be a two-man operation. They agreed.

The installers came back, were shown how to access the whole roof and duly completed the job.

So all was well. Except I wondered how many other mistakes were being made around Australia by this sudden growth industry "awash with untrained installers", as a Senate inquiry was told.

Apart from the four deaths, evidence has been given that sub-standard materials may have been used in up to 400,000 properties.

And how many billing mistakes, I wondered, have been made with householders more trusting than I?

A friend remarked that we seem to live in an age which encourages us to grab whatever we can get away with, rather than what we honestly deserve.

That got me thinking about ethics, specifically what ethics training we give our kids.

It's hit and miss. If you are brought up in a household where ethics matter, good luck to you. But some people are strangers to the word; they think ethics is an English county near Sussex.