Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) says that although the Government is hosting a WHO meeting on tobacco this week, more action to prevent the uptake of tobacco by young people is needed.

ASH says that measures including a ban on the display of tobacco at the point-of-sale and an increase in tobacco excise tax would dramatically slow the numbers of new smokers.

"The meeting shows that New Zealand supports measures to combat tobacco harm globally, but the reality is that substantive changes haven't happened in this country since 2003," said ASH director Ben Youdan.

"In this time our smoking rate has hardly declined and countries like the UK, Australia and Canada all now have lower smoking rates."

Mr Youdan says this is because of tough, proven measures including bans on the display of tobacco in shops and hard-hitting anti-tobacco industry social marketing campaigns.

The WHO conference is focused on smoking cessation and providing the health workforce with the tools to offer smokers better support to quit.

"Cessation is of vital importance, as we know that three-quarters of smokers want to quit - we are fully supportive of these measures. However, if we are really serious about eliminating tobacco harm in this country we need to address the bigger picture issues of supply.

"The Government needs to be aware of the strength of public opinion supporting a display ban," said Mr Youdan.