KEY POINTS:
An opinion poll on the emissions trading scheme has found more people support it than not.
The survey of 514 people, conducted by DigiPoll last month, found 34 per cent for and 24 per cent against the legislation.
The bill has been reported back by the finance select
committee and the Government is trying to muster enough support among the smaller parties to get it passed before the election.
Nearly half of respondents agreed: "New Zealand should be one of the world leaders on climate change and work at the same pace as other countries which are determined to make a difference."
Forty-four per cent disagreed with the assertion: "New Zealand's carbon emissions are so small that any action we take will not make any difference to the effects of climate change." Thirty-four per cent agreed with the statement.
And 87 per cent said they were personally prepared to take steps or accept costs to reduce the effects of climate change.
But price resistance set in somewhere between $10 and $20 a week when asked how much more they would pay for power and petrol.
Greenpeace executive director Bunny McDiarmid said the questions about costs were misleading.
"The survey makes it sound like householders won't face these costs if the emissions trading scheme is not in place, which is not true."
Without the polluter-pays scheme, taxpayers would bear the entire cost of New Zealand's liability under the Kyoto Protocol. McDiarmid said.
The survey found majority support, 62 per cent, for waiting a month to see what the Australia Government scheme looks like.
Respondents who planned to vote for New Zealand First this year, or had previously considered voting for it or might in the future, were more likely than not (19 per cent versus 15 per cent) to vote for the party if it supported the legislation, while 65 per cent said it would make no difference.
They represent only a third of the survey's respondents, however, so the margin of error would be larger than the 4.2 per cent applying to the survey as a whole.
Some of the survey's responses are hard to reconcile.
More agreed than disagreed (40 per cent versus 31 per cent) with the assertion: "The legislation should only be passed as other countries pass similar legislation, because it will be costly, lead to job losses and some businesses may need to move offshore. Slower action is needed than the Government is proposing."
But by a similar margin (40 per cent versus 34 per cent) they agreed "it is important to pass the legislation so that New Zealand begins cutting out carbon emissions, to lead the world in saving the planet from the disastrous consequences of climate change".
Climate Change Minister David Parker said the survey questions came very close to "push polling", where an incorrect or misleading statement is presented to the public for a response.
He pointed to the National Party affiliations of Matthew Hooton, whose public relations company, Exceltium, commissioned the poll.
But Hooton and DigiPoll director Gabriel Dekel defended the "objectivity and neutrality" of the questionnaire.
A separate survey last month by TNS Conversa for the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research found only 47 per cent of respondents were aware of the emissions trading scheme and 53 per cent said they did not know any details or did not understand it.