Updated 9.39am: The Defence Minister is side-stepping the issue of how much New Zealanders have been told about our troops going to Iraq.

Gerry Brownlee is on the back foot over the contrast between the way the Australian and New Zealand governments have handled public announcements concerning their respective deployments.

A small New Zealand contingent left for Iraq yesterday with Australian troops, but we only found out because Australia announced it.

New Zealand First MP Ron Mark remains concerned the government's refused to give any details about the mission's status of forces agreement.

"It'll be a very important piece of paper, if one of our troops accidentally kills a woman in crossfire while defending himself and ends up in front of a sharia court, because of a failure to put in place a comprehensive, standard, internationally recognised status of forces agreement."

Gerry Brownlee says the defence force isn't thinking about politics every day.

But he concedes communication could be better.

"I'm not getting particularly wound up about that, in the end I've got huge respect for these people. They're going in to do a difficult job, they're going in willingly, and you've got to let them have operational movement."

The minister maintains the New Zealand public is well informed.

Mr Brownlee says it's because the public had already been told and it wasn't a new announcement.

"No I don't think I was saying they weren't off. What I said is we have made the same comment from our Prime Minister back in February, that our troops were going to be part of a mission to Iraq."