Troops deserve Afghan debate: Greens


Parliamentary debate about Australia's role in the Afghanistan war probably won't change the status quo, Australian Greens leader Bob Brown says.

Labor agreed to the debate after the Greens made it a condition of their support for a Gillard minority government.

Senator Brown conceded on Sunday that "on the face of it" the debate would not change Australia's mission there.

"But the important thing here is that after 10 years of no parliamentary debate, we owe it to our troops and their loved ones and this nation generally to be debating the deployment of those good folk... into Afghanistan," he told Network Ten.

Ten Australian soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan during this year alone.