Despite the accounting scandals at Anderson, and the legal scandals at Clayton Utz, no-one is suggesting that accounting firms pitch against each other by conducting free audits. No-one seems to be suggesting that you should shop around among law firms until you get the opinion you fancy.

Corporate advisers have never been under greater scrutiny than they are now, but it has never been harder to be appropriately remunerated for the risks we take, and the value we add to our client’s brands.

But if we agree, based on our shared knowledge, that trust is the cornerstone of any human relationship, and hence, of every brand, then maybe the brand “advertising” needs to have a look at itself.

We seem to accept as some sort of historic inevitability that advertising will always be one of the least trusted industries – right up there with newspaper journalists, and politicians. I would contend that there is nothing inevitable about it, and that it can be changed.

Advertising has changed Australia in many ways, some good, some not so good – but we do a lousy job at explaining to people all the good things we do – the good things that might go some way to re-building trust in our industry.

Today’s lunch is a good example – I am confident that no other industry has done more for homeless kids in Australia than the advertising industry, and yet the average Australian would have no idea of the value of what we’ve done.

Over the years, we’ve successfully persuaded Australians to wear seat belts, go for a walk, be more tolerant of mental illness, and clean up after themselves. We are the greatest social advocacy force in the country.

We donate millions of dollars worth of pro-bono work for charities – although too much of it is wasted, because we can’t get matching pro-bono media.

We invest in training our young people through the AFA’s traineeship program, and we mentor emerging talent.

We’ve developed the world’s first advertising code of ethics – now being hailed as best practice globally.

So we know we do a lot of good things.

But we do some silly things, too – which make people mad at us, and prevent us from developing the trust we aspire to earn.

It would be really good if we could persuade the Outdoor Advertising industry to stop accepting billboards whose sole purpose is to generate as much free media as possible by outraging community standards.

I know things are tough in the Outdoor industry, and turning money away is difficult, but for the future of everyone in the communications industry, I’d argue it’s essential. We know who the culprits are – sometimes it’s a direct client, as in the case of the Kayser billboard, and sometimes it’s very small agencies, with very small clients, looking for instant notoriety.

Unfortunately, when the community looks at these billboards, they don’t say “oh, that ad was done by someone who’s not a member of the industry body, and who has not signed up to the code of ethics’. They think, “there goes the advertising industry again – how come they are so out of touch with what the community expects”. We are all damaged by the renegade actions of a few.

Victoria has moved to introduce a code for the portrayal of women in advertising, which agencies will have to sign on to, if they want Government business – which means they intend to regulate the industry, because they believe we have failed to do it ourselves.

The Federal Government has similar views about car advertising, and has forced the development of a code to reduce some of the more egregious excesses of recent times.