{"id":251443,"date":"2026-01-25T19:24:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-25T19:24:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/251443\/"},"modified":"2026-01-25T19:24:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-25T19:24:09","slug":"winston-peters-questions-nzs-funding-for-world-health-organization","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/251443\/","title":{"rendered":"Winston Peters questions NZ’s funding for World Health Organization"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"250624_bridge_war_Conflict\"\/<\/p>\n

\n

Photo: RNZ \/ Mark Papalii\n<\/p>\n

NZ First leader Winston Peters is questioning whether New Zealand should continue to fund the World Health Organization.<\/p>\n

His comment, made on his personal X account, came after the United States withdrew from the organisation<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

“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.”<\/p>\n

Peters told Morning Report the WHO was a bloated organisation and not performing the way it should.<\/p>\n

“They’ve forgotten what their original mandate was, they’ve forgotten the original parameters and boundaries they were given.<\/p>\n

“I think we’ve got a right to question the issue of funding.<\/p>\n

“We need to have a serious conversation interms of accountability to the New Zealand people.”<\/p>\n

Washington formally withdrew from the WHO last week accusing it of numerous “failures during the Covid-19 pandemic” and of acting “repeatedly against the interests of the United States”.<\/p>\n

The agency’s head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesu said the withdrawal made “the US and the world less safe”and the reasons cited for the US decision were “untrue.”<\/p>\n

Sign up for Ng\u0101 Pitopito K\u014drero<\/a>, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo: RNZ \/ Mark Papalii NZ First leader Winston Peters is questioning whether New Zealand should continue to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":39131,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[48,47,111,43,139,69,49,46,44,45],"class_list":{"0":"post-251443","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-audio","9":"tag-current-affairs","10":"tag-new-zealand","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-newzealand","13":"tag-nz","14":"tag-podcasts","15":"tag-public-radio","16":"tag-radio-new-zealand","17":"tag-rnz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=251443"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251443\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=251443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=251443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=251443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}