Heat on Scott Morrison over WHO funding

Scott Morrison faces backbench pressure to make Australia’s nearly $53m-a-year contribution to the WHO conditional on reforms.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison. Picture: Gary Ramage

Scott Morrison faces backbench pressure to make Australia’s nearly $53m-a-year taxpayer-funded contribution to the World Health Organisation conditional on reforms to the UN body, after Donald Trump’s move to halt WHO funding.

The Prime Minister, who sympathised with the United States’ move, said Australia would not halt or cut funding to the WHO because of its work in the Pacific.

But Mr Morrison continued to attack the organisation’s shifting position on the future of China’s wet markets.

Some Liberal and Labor MPs now believe there should either be a review of Australia’s funding of the WHO, or the government should add conditions to its WHO contributions after the COVID-19 pandemic.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. Picture: AFP

Mr Morrison said he understood the US president’s decision to halt funding, and that he would continue to push for reform of the WHO from within the organisation.

“I sympathise with his criticisms and I’ve made a few of my own,” he told Perth’s 6PR radio.

“We called this thing weeks before the WHO did … most significantly, the unfathomable decision that they’ve had about wet markets.

“That said, the WHO is also as an organisation does a lot of important work, including here in our own region in the Pacific, and we work closely with them so that we’re not going to throw the baby out with the bathwater here.

“They’re also not immune from criticism and immune from doing things better.”

Over the past two years to December 2019, Australia gave a $35.23m assessed contribution to the WHO, and another $70.16m in voluntary donations.

The US was the WHO’s biggest donor, contributing nearly $1.4bn over two years.

China has only donated $133m in the past two years. A spokesman for the communist nation’s Australian embassy hit back at claims China has manipulated international institutions.

“What China has done is to fulfil its international obligations as a permanent member of the UN Security Council and an important member of WHO,” he said.

Liberal MP Dave Sharma. Picture: AAP

Liberal MP Dave Sharma – an ex-ambassador to Israel – told Sky News on Tuesday that the government should only fund the WHO in the future if it reforms its practices.

“We’re a significant donor to the WHO as well in terms of assessed contributions and also voluntary contributions. So I expect that we’ll be having more to say on this once the worst of this crisis is behind us,” Mr Sharma said.

“We should make sure that we condition our future funding upon necessary reforms.

“This is generally how we drive change in the international system, is we make our continued contributions, continued support for an international organisation, contingent upon reforms that must be done.”

Labor MP Anthony Byrne, the deputy chairman of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, backed Mr Sharma’s position.

“We should continue to fund the WHO on the proviso that reforms are undertaken,” Mr Byrne told The Australian.

“The fact that they have not demanded that wet markets, where COVID-19 started, should not be reopened and their bullying of and brawling with Taiwan have seriously tarnished the WHO’s reputation,” he said

Former international development minister Concetta Fierravanti-Wells said Mr Morrison should fully review Australia’s contribution.

“While we have been a consistent contributor to UN funding, some of its practices have been inefficient and ineffective. There has also been interference by totalitarian regimes and allegations of corrupt practices,” she said.

“For Australia’s part, we need to be very careful when committing Australian taxpayers’ money.”