PoO was drawn to the news beneath an RNZ headline which trumpeted:
Former Foreign Minister says NZ must stand up to Trump, defends WHO work
This was a follow-up to Foreign Minister Winston Peters saying the country needs to take a serious look at whether taxpayers’ money is being spent responsibly on the World Health Organisation.
According to RNZ, his comment was made on his personal X account after the United States withdrew from the organisation.
According to RNZ, his comment was made on his personal X account after the United States withdrew from the organisation.
In his post on Friday, Peters said: “This is what happens when a bunch of unelected globalist bureaucrats are not accountable or responsible with worldwide taxpayers’ money.
“With the US withdrawing its membership it puts into question the current state of the WHO, its effectiveness, and if our taxpayers money is being responsibly spent overseas instead of here at home.”
Peters told Morning Report on Monday the WHO was a bloated organisation which was not performing the way it should.
“They’ve forgotten what their original mandate was, they’ve forgotten the original parameters and boundaries they were given.
“I think we’ve got a right to question the issue of funding.
“We need to have a serious conversation in terms of accountability to the New Zealand people.”
The WHO is a specialised agency of the United Nations responsible for international public health. Its primary mission is to promote health, keep the world safe, and serve vulnerable populations worldwide. Headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, it was founded in 1948.
Key roles include:
- Coordinating global health responses (e.g., to pandemics, outbreaks, and emergencies)
- Setting international health standards and guidelines
- Providing technical assistance to countries
- Monitoring and researching health trends
- Combating neglected tropical diseases, non-communicable diseases, and other global health threats
- Working toward universal health coverage and “Health for All”
How many millions?
Our Google search threw up figures showing that for the 2024–2025 budget period, New Zealand’s total contributions were approximately NZ$13.9 million broken down into:
- Assessed Contributions (mandatory dues based on a country’s population and wealth): About NZ$6 million.
- Voluntary Contributions ( typically “specified” funds for particular initiatives): About NZ$7.9 million. These are initiatives such as:
- Contingency Fund for Emergencies: New Zealand provides NZ$1.5 million annually to this fund to support rapid response to disease outbreaks.
- Programmatic Support: Funds for specific regional health projects, often in the Pacific.
Hmm. Who might have some thoughts on this?
RNZ turned – would you believe? – to Phil Goff, introducing him as Labour’s foreign minister between 1999 and 2005 under Helen Clark.
A bit further down the online report, more pertinently, RNZ reminded its audience that Peters had sacked Goff as New Zealand’s high commissioner to the UK last year over comments critical of US President Donald Trump.
Now Goff was given the chance to say it appeared Peters wanted to “become a mini-Trump” .
He also said New Zealand leaving WHO would be “incredibly stupid”.
“The WHO has done some incredible things in the world. It’s been responsible for the eradication of smallpox, the near-eradication of polio, fighting pandemics. You can’t fight pandemics on a national basis because diseases don’t respect national borders.
“But also [it brings] the advantage of health care to those countries that desperately need it, the underdeveloped countries. So we spend, I think there’s an annual assessment of about $2.25 million from New Zealand plus a voluntary contribution – it’s not huge money and it’s vitally important.”
But Goff was also given a platform to say it was “gutless” Luxon had not ruled out joining Trump’s proposed ‘Board of Peace’
This board is the outfit which the US president established to oversee the reconstruction of Gaza and has suggested might one day replace the UN.
Trump has invited the likes of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed bin Salman to join this Board of Peace and Goff said by not immediately declining the invite, the government was appeasing a bully.
“When you stand up to a bully, they often have to back off. When you appease them, you just encourage them to keep on doing what they’re doing.
“And we know that what Trump is doing is destroying the fundamental basis of New Zealand foreign policy, which is to have an international rules-based order, not one based on personality and might being right. That is totally against what New Zealand has always stood for.
“And for us to suck up to Trump, to fail to criticise him, even when he says that our soldiers and NATO soldiers in Afghanistan didn’t go near the front line – deeply insulting, deeply hurtful to veterans – that’s a disgrace. And surely our foreign minister and prime minister should have felt it necessary to speak out and criticise Trump for saying that, as Starmer did, as Macron did, as Donald Tusk in Poland did.
“We have been gutless in this area, and I really feel that as a person proud of my country and proud of it standing up for the values that we have stood for so often in the past.”
RNZ reminded us that 10 New Zealanders lost their lives during the War in Afghanistan.
But back to WHO.
At Newsroom, Jonathan Milne wrote that Cook Islands and Samoa are both battling dengue fever outbreaks, Papua New Guinea has zika, and travellers have brought both to New Zealand. French Polynesia, New Caledonia and others have influenza outbreaks.
We may may have lifted our national measles alert, but Australia is still on red alert, while Vanuatu and New Zealand are both seeing increased cases of whooping cough.
Milne turned for comment to Sir Collin Tukuitonga, professor of public health at the University of Auckland, previously New Zealand’s director of public health, and director-general of the Pacific Community. He worked with the WHO in Geneva, seeking public health responses to obesity – and when New Zealand did send in support to Cook Islands during Covid, Tukuitonga led one of the teams.
He’s not given to rhetoric, but he describes Winston Peters’ move away from the WHO as “reckless and irresponsible”.
And:
“You need a global science-based organisation that provides standards, technical advice, treatment options, and emergency response. And we actually use their advice here in New Zealand, ranging from diagnostic criteria for certain conditions, to treatments. So I have to say, it’s extremely disappointing.”
“Pandemics, viruses, bacteria, they don’t really respect borders. Take ebola, for example, or polio – we have polio in Papua New Guinea. If Winston follows through with his threat, it puts all the island nations at risk.”
Going beyond the Pacific, the WHO is credited with achieving many landmark successes since its founding in 1948, coordinating global efforts that have saved hundreds of millions of lives, eradicated diseases, and shaped international health policy.
The eradication of smallpox has saved countless lives and demonstrated the power of coordinated international action.
The near-eradication of polio has reduced wild poliovirus cases from hundreds of thousands of cases annually in the 1980s to just a handful in recent years. Polio is on the verge of global eradication.
Does Trump have a replacement organisation in mind to continue this work, as he has done with his Board of Peace to replace the United Nations?
Bob Edlin is a veteran journalist and editor for the Point of Order blog HERE. - where this article was sourced.
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