Rather than deal with the issues raised in the 2025 Global Tobacco Industry Interference Index, released by the Cancer Society last week, she goes on the attack.
She went as far as describing the society’s report as "reckonings around hysteria and misinformation".
The Cancer Society completes New Zealand’s report for the index which is produced by the Global Center for Good Governance in Tobacco Control and has been released every two years since 2019. It ranks 100 countries.
The "nonsensical headline" Ms Costello took umbrage with drew attention to New Zealand’s plummet in the global tobacco control rankings.
Since 2023, New Zealand has dropped from second to 53rd in the interference index, the global report describing the country as one of the "most deteriorated".
The point of the report is to assess how governments guard against tobacco industry interference and protect their public health policies from tobacco industry interference as required under the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, something New Zealand signed more than 20 years ago.
This index is compiled using publicly available information to rank countries using scores provided by civil society groups in country-level reports. A standardised methodology and scoring system is used to determine the level of interference.
It had been recognised that the closer we got to reaching the smoke-free target, which is to reduce daily smoking rates to below 5% of the population by the end of this year, the more difficult it would become to make progress without extra methods of discouragement.
That is why the previous government had bold plans which included the denicotinisation of cigarettes, big reductions in the number of outlets selling tobacco and banning anyone born from January 2009 from buying tobacco.
These measures were regarded as world-leading, but the government moved quickly to throw them out soon after it was elected, despite widespread criticism.
This month, the Maldives became the first country to introduce a nationwide generational tobacco prohibition when it banned people born on or after January 1, 2007, from buying, using or selling tobacco there. Vaping is already banned.
The United Kingdom has also picked up the generational sales ban idea in a Bill which has yet to become law.
The rolling back of the Labour government reforms was referred to in the interference report, along with the decision to reduce excise tax on heated tobacco products, against official advice.
It also drew attention to the lack of controls on lobbying which allows politicians and public servants to move seamlessly from public roles into positions where they can use their knowledge to attempt to influence government policy.
Despite Ms Costello insisting that the government’s smoke-free measures are the right ones, we are not expected to meet the 5% target this year and progress has flatlined, at 6.9%.
This slowing of progress comes also with increasing concern about the impact of vaping on young people’s health and the risk of it leading to them taking up smoking and the effect of this on Māori and Pasifika smoking rates.
Ms Costello’s insistence the tobacco industry has had no involvement in the government’s smokefree and health policies is hard to take.
It is not clear she understands proper process, since the mystery document affair which led to her being rapped over the knuckles by both the chief ombudsman and the chief archivist for her breaches of the Official Information Act and the Public Records Act.
If there is no problem with government processes and it is just a matter of perception, a belt-and-braces approach could silence critics.
This would include paying serious attention to the Cancer Society’s recommendations, including a whole of government approach to the issue, a lobbyist register and better information around Big Tobacco’s political donations, profits and marketing expenditure.
