Premier Alex Scott's decision to re-open consultation on the plans to build the new hospital in the Botanical Gardens is welcome, but care should be taken not to make more of it than it warrants.

Mr. Scott has simply said that more information on why the decision to build on the Gardens was taken will be made available to the public. And he remains confident that once that happens, opposition will diminish and the decision will be accepted.

Based on the public meetings held over the last four days, that seems unlikely, and it would appear that the Government has badly underestimated the degree of opposition to the plan.

What boggles the mind is that neither the Government nor the Bermuda Hospitals Board seemed to anticipate the uproar that has ensued, either from the general public or from the Sustainable Development Round Table that was appointed by the Premier himself.

On Friday, The Bermuda Sun quoted a senior civil servant saying that the Premier re-opened the consultation in order to bolster his own position before the Progressive Labour Party conference, where a challenge is possible. This is sheer fantasy.

The fact is that Mr. Scott had to defuse a disastrous public relations situation. The reversal has earned Mr. Scott some breathing space, but it certainly does not make him look decisive.

And Mr. Scott is getting no help from his own Cabinet. This month has seen two Ministers again demonstrate how ham-handed they are when it comes to communication.

First, Housing Minister David Burch said objectors to the Loughlands development should "get over it"; the development was going to happen, and apparently the public should just accept it. Then Health Minister Patrice Minors said much the same thing about the Botanical Gardens decision.

Sen. Burch compounded the problem last week when he again defended his controversial use of special development orders, admitting he was "short-circuiting" the planning process and abusing the system to force through potentially unpopular housing developments without any consultation.

All of this was justified by the depth of the housing crisis and the fact that it the normal planning process takes too long.

This is government by diktat, a far cry from the PLP's discredited "sunshine of transparency" policy of 1998, or even the "Age of Empowerment" it has tried to sell more recently. This year's Throne Speech theme won't be "we know best, so just get over it", but that is what Government policy amounts to.

The danger of Sen. Burch's approach to dealing with a crisis ? which housing is, in part because of the ineptitude of the Government itself ? is that it sets a precedent that can be applied to almost any situation. What crisis will be next that requires that current laws and practices need to be "short-circuited"? When did public objections to planning applications become so odious?

With regard to Minister Minors, the public has now learned that the Botanical Gardens' decision was actually the one least favoured by the BHB, and the only reason it was chosen was because Government had capped spending at $500 million, and construction on the current site was likely to cost more than that.

In explaining how Cabinet came to its decision, Mrs. Minors apparently forgot to tell anyone about that significant policy, which in effect made the whole process of public consultation a farce.

The fact is that for all of its overblown claims of its own accomplishments and its ability to give itself hefty pay raises, this Government lurches from one self-made crisis to another, and the hospital is simply the latest in a long and dismal saga.