Anti-smoking groups will meet in Wellington on Monday as part of their continuing campaign to make New Zealand smoke free by 2020.

The Smokefree Coalition will hold a seminar to encourage submissions to parliamentary inquiry into smoking to be held next year.

The Maori affairs select committee is inquiring into the tobacco industry and the consequences of tobacco use for Maori with written submissions due by January 29 and public hearings beginning in February.

The coalition's director, Prudence Stone, was confident the MPs would back their calls to end smoking in New Zealand.

The coalition said New Zealand could be smoke free by 2020 through legislation addressing supply and demand, and tobacco marketing.

(Xinhua News Agency December 13, 2009)