NZ First's Casey Costello at a campaign event during the 2023 election. She is now the minister in charge of smokefree legislation. Photo: Katie Scotcher / RNZ
Health Minister Shane Reti says he still has confidence in Associate Minister Casey Costello, who is facing criticism for her possible plans for smoking legislation.
RNZ on Thursday reported Costello was denying plans to freeze excise tax increases for cigarettes for three years, despite leaked documents from the Ministry of Health saying she had proposed to do just that.
She was also proposing to remove excise tax from products that heat tobacco to a vapour rather than burn it.
Health advocates have since called for Costello to resign or be stripped of her duties, with Health Coalition Aotearoa saying she was acting like a "minister for the tobacco industry", and Action on Smoking and Health arguing her proposals did not make sense.
Asthma and Respiratory Foundation said a freeze on tax increases was "outrageous" and felt like "more of a win for big tobacco".
Dr Reti told RNZ's Midday Report he still had confidence in the associate health minister.
"Minister Costello has the lead on smokefree, and she has my confidence and she's been addressing the issue as they've come up - so I will leave that in her hands."
Health Minister Shane Reti Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
Asked if smokers were - as Costello argued - being burdened by high cigarette prices, Reti would only say the government's "ambition is to continue to drive down smoking rates and Minister Costello will do that".
"I believe that we'll continue to drive smoking rates down, and it is the ambition of this government and the ambition of Minister Costello," he said.
Costello has also been criticised for a potential conflict of interest, considering she is a former chairperson and board member of the Taxpayers Union lobby group.
As recently as December, the group disclosed that 2.1 percent of its annual income was from membership dues and donations from private industry, including from the nicotine, alcohol, sugar and construction industries. It maintains its policy positions are uninfluenced by donations.
The NZ First Minister told RNZ she had no links to the tobacco industry at all.
Māori public health group Hāpai te Hauora's spokesperson Leitu Tufuga told RNZ's Morning Report those kinds of links raised questions.
"We need someone with credibility and someone who can look at the evidence objectively," she said.
Calls for Casey Costello to be stripped of portfolio over tobacco tax freeze
"When you have someone who has that background it makes you question: will they be looking at all of the evidence objectively, and doing as much as they can to support particularly Māori who have the highest smoking prevalence?
"We need someone there with bold leadership. There's this big goal to be smokefree by 2025 and there is a target for our population to reach that 5 percent target of just having 5 percent of our people smoking."
Tufuga said there was little evidence to support heated tobacco products as a tool for quitting smoking, and while vaping had a part to play it was just one of the tools alongside sprays and nicotine patches.
Others connected to NZ First do appear to have links to the industry, including 2014-17 chief executive David Broome who is now external relations manager at tobacco firm Philip Morris. Apirana Dawson, who was leader Winston Peters' director of operations and research from 2013 to 2017, lists a role as external affairs and communications director at the same firm on his LinkedIn profile.