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.

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.