Wellington, Sept 27 NZPA - Debate on the amended Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) is not over yet.

The Government passed the amendment legislation on Thursday and the bill is now before the Finance and Expenditure Select Committee.

After months of hearing from politicians on the subject, the public will now get an opportunity to have their say.

The committee chairman, Craig Foss, invited submissions on the Climate Change Response (Moderated Emissions Trading) Amendment Bill.

Submissions close on October 13.

Mr Foss said the committee would have access to "all publicly available Parliamentary information" about climate change response and the ETS.

The previous government passed an ETS just before last year's election but National put it on hold because it considered the cost to the economy would be too high.

It was revised and changes have been put into the bill.

The ETS seeks to limit emissions, which New Zealand is required to do under international agreements, by putting a price on carbon.

Eventually all sectors of the economy will come under the ETS, starting with industry, energy and transport in July next year.

Agriculture will come under it in 2015, two years later than under the original ETS.

It is a less rigorous scheme than the one introduced by the previous government and will halve the cost to consumers of power and petrol price rises.

Taxpayers will subsidise polluters to a greater extent during a transition period.