New Zealand 'should aim to be smoke free by 2025'

New Zealand should severely limit the import and use of tobacco and aim to become a smoke-free nation by 2025, a parliamentary committee has recommended.

The proposal to drastically cut smoking rates was welcomed by health workers and given cautious support from the government, which said the habit is a health hazard but would be difficult to completely eradicate it.

The only other country with a similar policy is Finland, which plans to be smoke free by 2040, said anti-smoking group Action on Smoking and Health director, Ben Youdan.

About 20 per cent of New Zealand's 4.4 million general population smoke, but that rate is double - 40 per cent - among the indigenous Maori people.

The health costs of smoking hinder Maori social and cultural well-being as well as economic development, the committee's report found. Smoking bans would be good for all New Zealanders, it said.

"The goal is simple: We want tobacco consumption and smoking prevalence to be halved by 2015 across all demographics and New Zealand to be a smoke-free nation by 2025," the report said.

The committee recommends the government require tobacco companies to fund all stop-smoking aids, cut imports by a set amount each year, ban tobacco sales displays, impose annual price rises above the inflation rate and reduce duty-free import levels of tobacco products.

In recent months, the government has imposed an extra 30 per cent tax increase on tobacco products to phase in over three years and banned smoking in prisons starting in July 2011.

Prime minister John Key, who had been briefed on the report's recommendations ahead of its release, said that "it would be extremely difficult" to make New Zealand smoke-free by 2025, but that his government acknowledged the harm smoking caused - the reason it has increased taxes on tobacco products.