Police redundancy payments have soared from $180,980 to $1.75 million in just two years, Labour says.

Police spokesman Kris Faafoi says it's the result of government cuts to the police budget.

"This year's budget put police bosses under serious pressure to cut costs, but National's targets haven't come cheap," he said.

"Lay-offs forced on police are a double whammy."

Mr Faafoi says police have cut back office staff which has forced more frontline officers into administrative work, and the "massive cost" of redundancies is being funded out of operational budgets.

"that's a doubled negative for taxpayers, Kiwis don't want to see jobs lost and they don't want to see redundancy payments translated into fewer frontline resources for their communities."