Majority back aid team to stay in Afghanistan

A slim majority wants to leave the reconstruction team in Afghanistan after the SAS return. Photo / Supplied

The majority of voters want New Zealand's Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) to stay on in Bamiyan province in Afghanistan, according to a Herald-DigiPoll survey.

The deployment is supported by both Labour and National.

But a bare majority, only 53.9 per cent of voters, believe the team should stay on after the SAS is brought home in March; 38 per cent do not think they should stay on at all; and 8.2 per cent don't know.

About 140 New Zealand Defence Force and other personnel based in Bamiyan are due to stay on until 2014. They have been providing security and helping upgrade infrastructure.

According to the defence force, the team also includes New Zealand police, NZAID personnel, United States Armed Forces, representatives from the US Departments of State and Agriculture, and a USAID representative.

The PRT passed responsibility for security to local control in July this year, and is now under the civilian control of Dick Newlands.

The SAS is on its fourth deployment. Labour originally sent the SAS to Afghanistan in 2001, did not send them back in its last term in Government from 2005 to 2008 and opposes the current deployment on the grounds that the Afghan Government is corrupt.

However Labour differentiates between the Kabul Government and the provincial government, led by Governor Habiba Sarabi.

The SAS is due to return home in March next year, which Labour has said it will not change if it heads the Government after the election. Labour has ruled out any future SAS deployment.

Prime Minister John Key said in a TVNZ election debate on Monday that he still intended to bring them back in March. He said there probably would not be another deployment, but he would not rule it out.