KEY POINTS:
New Zealand First leader Winston Peters says his party will be talking to the Government in the next few weeks about support for its emissions trading scheme legislation.
The Government is negotiating with the smaller parties after National withdrew its support for the bill.
National still believes a trading scheme is the way to go, but says the legislation is poorly drafted and is being needlessly rushed.
Prime Minister Helen Clark says she never relied on National to get the bill through Parliament and described them as "fair-weather friends".
She said on Monday that her minority Government was talking to the smaller parties, as it did on most of the legislation it wanted passed.
Mr Peters said yesterday that his party would be talking to the Government over the next few weeks on the bill.
Asked which way NZ First was tending, he said: "We don't test the water with both feet, unlike some. We're going to find all the facts out first and make our decision then."
He said he would not conduct negotiations with the media on whether NZ First might be trying to get concessions out of the Government in return for its support.
This was after he was asked whether NZ First might try to get concessions on power for the elderly or beneficiaries in return for its support.
"We have a lot of things to do and talk with the Government about yet," he said. "There are a number of areas we're looking at."
He criticised National leader John Key for not showing leadership on the issue.
Mr Key had gone from being a "climate change denier to its number one activist in the country" and then had reneged on that position to see what Australia was doing.
"It's hardly showing leadership, and you know the National Party needs to get the idea of being able to hold more than one political thought for more than five minutes."
NZ First understood the international and long-term economic ramifications of the emissions trading scheme, he said.
"We believe there are possible ways through to the satisfaction of most reasonable, fair-minded people, business or otherwise."
If the bill was delayed without good reason, "then really you're playing bloody-minded politics and that's hardly in the national interest".
The Government is also talking to the Greens, which wants the scheme toughened up because it thinks the Government has already bowed to pressure from big polluters.
Under an emissions trading scheme, polluters face limits on how much planet-warming greenhouse gas they emit, and pay for each tonne of carbon that is over those limits.
The controversial legislation is making its way through the select committee process and has come under fire from business groups for its potential economic cost and from environment groups for not going far enough.
- NZPA
