WHAT should our tax strategy be? Or our waste strategy? Should new building go in the urban area or be spread around the island? Should bonfires be banned?

The Guernsey public is being consulted almost weekly on decisions – big and small – facing the States of Deliberation. In many ways, that is a very good thing. Our deputies are elected to govern on our behalf and should take notice of what we think. The question is whether the results of such consultation should be the clinching factor in making decisions or just one consideration among many.

As far as rubbish disposal is concerned, the deputy Public Services minister is in no doubt. Deputy Scott Ogier is determined that the new strategy, due before the States next spring, must be one that the public is happy with. His stance is that politicians and their expert advisors have twice devised solutions that proved impossible to sell to large numbers of islanders. This time around, the approach will be different. First, the PSD will find out what is publicly acceptable and then design a strategy around it.

We’ll consider whether that eminently reasonable-sounding approach can really work in practice in a moment.

First, let’s look at Deputy Ogier’s own involvement in the saga of Guernsey’s still unresolved waste disposal saga. Stopping the Lurgi incinerator seemed to be his main policy when he was first elected as a St Sampson’s representative in 2004. He was rapidly catapulted to political prominence when he succeeded in doing just that.

Those responsible for picking up the pieces and devising a new strategy decided he should play his part in that piece of work. There’s a famous American political saying about the advantages of having your potential opponents inside your tent facing out, rather than outside facing in. Unfortunately, it can’t be repeated verbatim in a family newspaper.

When the new proposals to buy a waste management facility, including an incinerator, from the French firm Suez came to the House, Deputy Ogier was a very strong supporter. Indeed there’s little doubt that his speech was a telling factor in the debate and helped secure the proposals a far more decisive vote in favour than anybody had really expected.

A few months later he had a major change of heart. Despite the ringing States endorsement of the Suez proposal, a significant section of the public felt it was the wrong path to go down. They organised a very effective campaign gathering many opponents. The anti-Suez lobby included those against incineration per se, those who wanted to send our rubbish to Jersey to be burned and those who believed in a magic box to be provided by a local businessman. Together they were unstoppable.

Faced with that tidal wave of opposition, Deputy Ogier – formerly a prime advocate of the Suez solution – became a telling opponent. Whether that represents laudable sensitivity to public opinion or just ‘going wobbly’ is open to interpretation.

With this track record of putting public sentiment before his own initial judgement, it’s no surprise that Deputy Ogier insists that widespread public support must be the main criterion for any new waste strategy. The question is whether that approach is really sustainable in an imperfect world.

Of course, it is always far, far, better for the States to take the public with it on big decisions. Democracy is about far more than voting every four years. People’s deputies are just that and govern on our behalf.

So any attempt to tap into public sentiment to help with policy formation is welcome.

On the other hand, we elect our deputies to research issues in far greater depth that most of us possibly can in our busy lives. There are some decisions that are unavoidable but inherently unpopular.

There are issues whereby whatever our deputies do, there are howls of protest, but where doing nothing is simply not an option. Rubbish disposal is surely one such issue.

We all produce waste and our society has to find a way of getting rid of it.

If Deputy Ogier and his team can find a solution that really works well and receives public endorsement, then hats off. But if it’s a choice between an effective solution that upsets some people, or a hugely popular exercise in wishful thinking, then they have to go for the former.

Of course deputies should listen to the public, but their job is sometimes to lead – however uncomfortable that may be. As the future of Guernsey’s waste disposal remains uncertain, Peter Roffey wonders how far deputies should go when it comes to listening to the public – and whether finding an effective solution should come above all else