Source: Radio New Zealand
Associate health minister Casey Costello says getting through longer term smokers was the most challenging part of the process. RNZ
Associate health minister Casey Costello has labelled New Zealand’s recent plummet in global tobacco control as “ridiculous” and “ludicrous”.
It comes after the country plummeted from second in the world in 2023 to 53rd in the 2025 Global Tobacco Industry Interference Index.
The main factors damaging New Zealand’s standing are the repeal of the smokefree generation laws, the tax break benefiting tobacco giant Philip Morris and the movement of staff between politics and the lobbying industry.
Costello told Morning Report she had been fully transparent.
“To suggest that someone who once worked for an organisation that once got donations at one time from a tobacco company means that they are corrupted in some way is absolutely ludicrous.
“I can give 100 percent assurance, I have been completely transparent in everything, my diary is fully released, every meeting, every paper has been released and every piece of work I have continued to engage.”
She said the report was a “pointless” and “ridiculous document”.
“It was absolute nonsense – they were comparing us to countries who have three times the smoking rate of us, and yet said that we had greater influence in the tobacco industry and yet our smoking rates were one of the lowest listed.”
Earlier, Vape-Free Kids, an advocacy group, said the “staggering drop” of 51 places in two years was the most dramatic fall of any country in the history of the report and an “international disgrace” for the government.
“New Zealand has become an international embarrassment and an example of how quickly a government can be corrupted by the tobacco industry,” Vape-Free Kids co-founder Charyl Robinson said.
SmokeFree 2025?
New Zealand’s smoking rate has been dipping throughout the last decade, but has somewhat stagnated the last three years and is sitting at 6.8 percent, just above the 5 percent target.
In 2024, the government scrapped laws which would have slashed tobacco retailers from 6000 to 600, removed 95 percent of the nicotine from cigarettes and banned sales of cigarettes to anyone born after 2009.
The prevalence of daily vaping had increased slightly from 11.1 percent last year to 11.7 percent this year.
Costello said told Morning Report SmokeFree 2025 was an “ambitious” target, and getting through longer term smokers a challenging part of the process.
She said the data was only to the end of June 2025, so the entirety of the year’s data wouldn’t be known until the next survey.
Under 25s were already a “smoke-free generation” with smoking rates of around 3 percent, she said.
When asked about alternatives to smoking, she said there was evidence vaping was safer than smoking.
“Vaping is safer than smoking, we have never said it’s safe, it is less harmful than smoking.”
She said there was no evidence that supported reducing nicotine levels.
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
