The father of a murdered Australian soldier has slammed the federal government's failure to prevent the release of the rogue Afghan soldier who was sentenced to death for killing three Diggers.

Hugh Poate's son Robert was one of three Australian soldiers murdered by Hekmatullah at their patrol base in Oruzgan province in 2012.

Robert Poate commanding a bushmaster in Afhanistan.Credit:Contributed by Robert Poate’s family

The Afghan sergeant was among 5000 prisoners to be released under a United States-backed peace deal between the Taliban and the Afghan government.

Mr Poate said his family was "not being told very much at all" and his son's killer "may well have been released already".

"We don't know. We're not being told anything," he told the Nine Network.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has written to US President Donald Trump asking that Hekmatullah not be released while Foreign Minister Marise Payne and Defence Minister Linda Reynolds raised the matter with their US counterparts in Washington during talks late last month.

Mr Morrison has also written to Afghan President Ashraf Ghani expressing his concerns.

He said last week the issue had been "a matter of very regular and persistent petitioning on our behalf". "Our position is that he should never be released," he said.

Labor leader Anthony Albanese said it was a "complete failure of diplomacy" and the families of those killed would be "really hurting".

"The fact is that the United States needs to understand that this is a major issue here in Australia and this person should not be released – full stop, exclamation mark," he told reporters on Tuesday. "The United States is Australia's ally. We should be in a position to very strongly say that Australia expects this terrorist to not be released."

Labor frontbencher Bill Shorten urged the government to do more to prevent the prisoner swap, saying the Prime Minister should tell Mr Trump Australia was his ally "not his door mat".

"Trump has got a shocking record," Mr Shorten told the Nine Network. "He does deals with the North Koreans, with Putin, he does deals with the bad guys.

"This was a shocking war crime. You shouldn't be able to kill Australians overseas and then have your closest ally give away the murderer in a prisoner swap."

Mr Poate said whatever the the Morrison government was doing was "far too little and it's far too late".

"It should have been done at the time. We couldn't understand why the sentence was not being carried out. Every time we ask questions, we were stonewalled and stymied," he said.

"I know from a non-government contact, because we've had no government contact, that Hekmatullah is no longer in the prison which is where he served the last seven years."

Hekmatullah has spent seven years in jail after murdering Lance Corporal Stjepan Milosevic, Sapper James Martin and Private Robert Poate in August 2012 while they were playing cards. He fled the base after shooting the three unarmed Diggers and injuring two others, but was captured in late 2013 and sentenced to death.

"His sentence was execution. It was not a term of imprisonment. If that sentence had been carried out we would not be in this situation now," Mr Poate said. "What message does it send to our soldiers who have put their life on the line to defend our country?"

Mr Shorten said the families of the three slain Australians and their fellow Diggers had been let down.

"Most Australian people will be upset to realise that our closest military ally is handing back a terrorist thug who cowardly turned his rifle on Australian servicemen," he said.

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