New Zealand’s associate health minister Casey Costello dismissed the Global Tobacco Industry Interference Index as “ridiculous”. Photo credit: New Zealand Parliament
An international study labeled New Zealand the “most deteriorated” country for tobacco industry interference, marking a sharp drop from second place in 2023 to 53rd in the 2025 Global Tobacco Industry Interference Index. Uruguay, Maldives, and Palau ranked as the most improved countries.
The Global Center for Good Governance in Tobacco Control releases the index every 2 years and now ranks 100 countries. The report cites 3 main reasons for New Zealand’s fall: the repeal of the smokefree generation laws, a tax cut that benefits tobacco giant Philip Morris, and movement of staff between political roles and the lobbying sector.
According to an RNZ report, Advocacy group Vape-Free Kids said the 51-place “staggering drop” marks the steepest fall ever of any country ever recorded in the index and called it an “international disgrace” for the New Zealand government.
“New Zealand has become an international embarrassment and an example of how quickly a government can be corrupted by the tobacco industry,” said Charyl Robinson, Vape-Free Kids co-founder.
Associate health minister Casey Costello dismissed the index as “ridiculous” and said smoking rates matter more than “the strange view, that what really matters is how much you criticize the tobacco industry.”
Costello said New Zealand’s smoking rate has dropped by more than half since 2015 and now sits at 6.9%—one of the lowest in the world.
“I haven’t seen this year’s index, but the last one had Brunei at no.1 and France at no.3. Brunei’s smoking rate is around 17%—well over double New Zealand’s rate. In May, France’s smoking rate was 23%—more than 3 times New Zealand’s rate,” she said. “That illustrates how ridiculous this index is.”
In 2024, the government repealed laws that would have cut the number of tobacco retailers from 6,000 to 600, removed 95% of the nicotine from cigarettes, and banned cigarette sales to anyone born after 2009. Costello also cut the excise tax on heated tobacco products (HTP) by 50%.
The report notes that New Zealand and Kazakhstan cut taxes on HTP and that Ecuador, Georgia, Madagascar, Türkiye, and Uganda also granted tax benefits to the tobacco industry.
“Tax increases are among the most effective tobacco control measures, yet more than 60 countries, often due to industry influence, did not raise taxes, delayed implementation of tax increases (or) lowered tax rates,” the report says.
Costello said she cut the HTP tax to encourage smokers to switch to a safer alternative. Treasury officials, however, told her the tax break would largely benefit Philip Morris because the company holds a monopoly on HTP in New Zealand.
Labour leader Chris Hipkins told RNZ* that Labour would reverse the tax cuts. “That was a tax break to the tobacco companies on the basis of some very, very questionable advice that isn’t going to be better for New Zealand’s health as a country,” he said. “It’s one tobacco company that, by and large, has got the vast bulk of the benefit from that, and that is going to change.”
The index report criticizes New Zealand’s unregulated lobbying sector and points to links between the tobacco industry and government decision makers. “In New Zealand, there is no requirement for the TI (tobacco industry) and affiliated entities to register with the government, and it is unclear how the relationship between the TI and the government is moderated.”
Two Philip Morris corporate communications staff previously held senior roles with NZ First.
The New Zealand Cancer Society wrote the section of the report covering policy decisions between March 2023 and March 2025. Cancer Society head of advocacy and public affairs Rachael Neumann said “a number of revolving-door connections” between the government and the industry contributed to New Zealand’s decline.
“This report has found that New Zealand’s score has significantly dropped since the 2023 report, and that there has been an increase in tobacco industry interference in New Zealand during this time,” she said.
Neumann said a “high level of industry participation” shaped New Zealand’s tobacco policy development and said “a whole range of unnecessary interactions” took place between the government and the tobacco industry.
Costello said protections against industry interference have not weakened and said New Zealand continues to follow international protocols for how officials should engage with the tobacco industry. She said the industry has no involvement in the government’s smokefree or health policies.
“I would have thought that the Cancer Society would actually care about reducing smoking and reducing cancer,” she said. “Instead, they’ve brought into a very strange view, that what really matters is how much you criticize the tobacco industry.”