They just had an election and the government flipped from centre-left to centre-right. It could just be the classic conservative “our position is whatever is the opposite of the left!”
Winston Peters (NZ First leader) is a total alcohol, tobacco, and racing (horse, greyhound, whatever) industry shill. I doubt he exactly needed to be bought, but this is certainly part of his price for being part of the coalition government.
ACT (secular libertarian free market folk) probably mildly supported it, and National (general centre right; largest party) is probably much the same.
Big tobacco doesn't really need cigarette sales anymore. They are all in on vape brands, where they can sell the liquid at ink-jet prices to customers for a huge markup at $6500 per liter. That's why you see vape shops on each street corner. The distribution is all streamlined. The website talks to the DHL warehouse about what stock is available, customers can subscribe to weekly delivery plans and the warehouse is filled by some factory in china.