KEY POINTS:
New National leader John Key says his party will tackle climate change, but the only new idea he has floated is establishing a trans-Tasman emissions trading market.
In his second speech as leader Mr Key today said scientific evidence indicated the world was getting warmer with potentially catastrophic results.
All governments should take that threat seriously.
However, Mr Key was non-committal on whether people were to blame.
"If human actions are contributing to a warming world we must do what we can to reduce our impact."
Mr Key said that meant striking a balance between economic growth and policies that were environmentally responsible.
"Most New Zealanders recognise, and agree, that these objectives, in as much as they compete with each other, need to be carefully weighed against each other.
"I can assure you that in developing our policies this is something National will have foremost in its mind."
He said Prime Minister Helen Clark's goal of making New Zealand carbon neutral could only be immediately achieved if industry was shut down.
Mr Key said he was confident "market-based solutions" could be found to some of the problems.
One was a potential emissions trading system with Australia.
Australia had set up a working group to look into a system and Mr Key New Zealand should take part.
"National has always favoured an emissions trading system and in the end it may make sense for this to include Australia."
Such initiatives were also important to ensure that countries outside the Kyoto Protocol were part of the global emission-reduction effort.
Mr Key said the Kyoto agreement was flawed and had done little to constrain New Zealand's emissions which were growing at a faster rate than Australia and the United States which had refused to sign.
Mr Key also used the speech, to the New Zealand Society of Actuaries, to reiterate National's commitment to "across the board" tax cuts to business and personal rates, without giving any details.
However, he attacked some of the options included in the Government's Business Tax Review.
The review includes options for a range of tax credits aimed at boosting companies' exports, research and development and investment in training.
Mr Key said such credits would distort companies' behaviour away from doing what was best for them to activities designed to get back some cash from the Government.
He said a training-based credit would encourage firms to formalise all the existing on-the-job training they do.
"For example, rather than Bob showing Mary how the coffee machine works, he could be designated an in-house instructor teaching a course on 'Preparing and presenting filtered coffee for service'. His employer could then claim tax back against this, even though nothing at all has changed," he said.
"National supports tax cuts which deliver the right incentives - to work, to study, to save, to invest and so on.
"If tax subsidies can deliver appropriate incentives and are good value for money then that's fine.
"History tells us, however, that this is a high hurdle indeed."
- NZPA
