Phil Goff
Labour Leader

30 September 2011

Time for PM to be upfront about SAS role

Prime Minister John Key needs to come clean and be honest about the role of the SAS in Afghanistan and why they are still there, says Labour Leader Phil Goff.

“In October 2009 John Key said that the SAS would not be mentoring Afghans by fighting alongside them because that was ‘particularly dangerous’. (New Zealand Herald, 06.10.09)

“Now he is saying that the SAS are there in a mentoring, but not a combat role.

He has been contradicted by his own Minister of Defence.

“The New Zealand SAS clearly are on the front line and in a combat role. Two brave men have died in the last few weeks doing just that,” Phil Goff said.

“New Zealanders understand sacrifice and we have suffered more than our share of lives lost in fighting for what we believe in over the last generation.

“But we need to know the sacrifice is not in vain. After 10 years in Afghanistan a corrupt regime has failed to win the hearts and minds of its own people and our efforts there cannot succeed in that situation.

“There is also confusion around the circumstances of the latest tragedy with criticism from the Governor of Wardak Province, and reports from journalists claiming that the people targeted were involved in a family feud, rather than anything to do with terrorism.

“New Zealanders deserve to know what the truth is.

“None of this reflects on the New Zealand soldiers who died courageously serving their country and doing what they believed to be right.

“Labour’s position for the last five years has been that the SAS should not be serving in Afghanistan. It’s time to bring them home and to state that they will not be redeployed there,” Phil Goff said.

ENDS

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