OF all the tightropes in the States departments, one of the hardest has to be that walked by the Environment Ministry.

Planning, as it was known until recently, is an innocuous enough department title, but it has always been something of a poisoned chalice, partly because it is a subject on which every one of us has an opinion — and they are all different ones.

It is a wonder, actually, that there is someone willing to take on the job of minister when it comes up. It is probably even worse than getting to look after the money, because at least with that job you look prudent if you draw the purse shut and generous if you open it.

With planning matters, you are always, always going to upset someone. It just goes with the territory.
Frogs and flowers

This job has been made all the more difficult because the job title of minister for all of this is now Environment — meaning that the person in charge gets to care about flowers and agile frogs as well as what the Waterfront looks like.

On the face of it this seems sensible, but in reality it means that the minister is trying to be two people in one skin. There doesn’t seem to be any way of getting round the fact that these are two roles which can never sit very easily together.

What seems really strange, therefore, about the defeat of the proposition to split the roles of Environment and Planning to ensure that the former has a real champion in high places was that it was not supported by the minister himself, Senator Freddie Cohen.

The very person who has withdrawn from debates on planning issues and has voiced his disquiet over the issue in a recent rezoning debate has apparently chan-ged his mind on the subject. It would be interesting to know how the situation has changed so radically between that green fields debate and this one. Does the Senator suddenly feel that it will all be all right after all and that putting up buildings and resisting attempts to do so on open land have suddenly become compatible?