Police Minister Stuart Nash isn't backing down over the Government's "aspirational" promise to add an extra 1800 new sworn police officers within three years.

After 18 months in power, the Government has only trained 650 new officers, however, Nash told Mike Yardley they are well on track.

"We went out there and we said we are going to strive to deliver 1800 new officers in three years. The fact that we have actually got 650 more officers than were there when we came into office, the National Government at the time promised 880 over four years, we have already delivered 650 over 18 months and by the end of the year there will be 1000."

However, National MP Mark Mitchell said National would be in the exact same place if they were in power.

"We would have delivered exactly the same number at this point, with an additional $500 million towards our police on top of a massive investment we made around technology."

"But the fact is, they are missing their targets. The Police are doing the best they can to try and pump these recruits out...but it was unrealistic."

However, Nash is making no apologies, saying he is incredibly "aspirational for our police service".

"One of the things we refuse to do is drop the quality of our police coming through. Every four weeks we have 80 men and women out into our communities, we have delivered hundreds already, there are 260 recruits in Police College at the moment, we are being innovative in that we have had two Auckland wings graduate for the first time since the 1970s."