New Zealand: Smokefree 2025 target unlikely to be met

Health experts doubt New Zealand will meet its "Smokefree 2025" target with the government's current approach, while the health minister is under fire over her party's alleged links to the tobacco industry.

Associate Health Minister Casey Costello, who is responsible for regulating smoking in government, has argued at a meeting with public health experts that the previous Labour government's legislation would have been scrapped. It would have banned tobacco sales to people born after 2009 and would have drastically reduced the number of places where tobacco is sold. The current minister says the target of reducing the smoking population to 5% by the end of next year is still achievable.

The ban on tobacco sales, a measure that would have been "not very effective" according to Ms Costello

Minister Costello has come under fire since she decided to reverse the previous Labour government's legislation that would have banned the sale of tobacco products to people born after January 2009. The announcement was hailed as a global breakthrough by health experts. The minister said the measures in the legislation would have done little to help achieve the "2025 tobacco-free" target because they would have come into force too late.[1]She vehemently denied any links to the tobacco industry, while health researchers questioned her credibility at the Aotearoa Health Coalition conference.

Costello cited data showing smoking rates had fallen from 13.3 per cent to 6.8 per cent since 2018, partly due to the availability of vapes. She also said an additional 80,000 people would need to quit smoking to meet the target.

Public health physician Professor Chris Bullen quickly challenged Costello's claim, saying it was unlikely that next year's target would be met. "not without enormous cost." He spoke of the damage the removal of the law had done to New Zealand's reputation as a world leader in smoking regulation and criticised the way the repeal had been framed to help fund the government's tax cuts.

Tobacco industry behind new law

End of August this year[2], an internal Philip Morris document from 2017 seen by Radio New Zealand revealed the manufacturer's plan to lobby the ruling NZ First and Te Pati Māori parliamentary groups for favourable regulation of its heated tobacco products. The document also indicated the manufacturer's desire to include heated tobacco and other nicotine products (e.g. vaping products, snus and nicotine pouches) in the government's Smokefree 2025 strategy to achieve a tobacco-free generation.

Health and tobacco control experts say Costello's recent moves to halve excise duty on heated tobacco products and legalise the sale of oral nicotine products (nicotine pouches) show the tobacco company's pressure has paid off. The loss of tax revenue on heated tobacco has led the government to set aside a A$216 million contingency fund.

In a statement to RNZ, Ms Costello said vaping had been an effective tool for quitting smoking and she was interested in seeing if heated tobacco would also be a useful tool for quitting, adding: “Heated tobacco has a similar risk profile to vaping.”

Unreasonable and unlawful actions by Ms. Costello

New Zealand's Chief Ombudsman Peter Boshier has launched an investigation after receiving a complaint from the co-director of the University of Otago's Aspire Aotearoa Tobacco Research Centre, Professor Janet Hoek, and Radio New Zealand (RNZ) about Senior Minister Ms Costello's refusal to disclose information about who wrote or compiled the briefs she used to formulate the government's current tobacco policy.[3].

In July this year, Professor Hoek and RNZ sought this information through a request under the Official Information Act (OIA). They wanted to know the department’s reasons for repealing the Smoke-Free Environments and Regulated Products (Smoked Tobacco) Act 2022.

"What we were looking for was any interaction between the minister and tobacco manufacturers and various other groups that we were concerned might have an influence on the decision to repeal the tobacco control legislation," said Professor Hoek.

Ms Costello refused to release the documents, citing a clause in the law protecting confidential advice given by ministers and civil servants. Professor Hoek and RNZ then referred the matter to the Chief Ombudsman, who found Ms Costello's actions "unreasonable and contrary to the law". The Ombudsman was concerned that the junior minister had been unable to produce documents relating to the provenance of the notes.

Ms Costello said she believed the notes were created "by copy-pasting from a variety of sources over a significant period of time before the formation of the coalition government" and that they emanated "probably from an employee or volunteer of a political party."

The Labour and Green parties said Ms Costello's arguments were a verbatim copy of those of tobacco lobbyists.

©Tobacco Free Generation

AE

[1] Adam Pearse, Health experts grill Casey Costello, throw doubt on Smokefree 2025 being achieved, The New-Zealand Herald, published September 24, 2024, accessed the same day

[2] Generation without tobacco, New Zealand: Philip Morris' offensive to obtain advantageous taxation in favour of heated tobacco, published on August 27, 2024, accessed on September 24, 2024

[3] John Lewis, Costello's department criticized for 'failures', Otago Daily News, published 20 September 2024, accessed 24 September 2024