Calls were made in Senate for committees to overview large pieces of legislation like the document for the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE).

The project, which began in 2006, is composed of four phases with phases one through three to be implemented by February 2009.

Phase four, according to Senator Kim Wilson who read out the amendment brief, will hinge on the completion of the Hamilton Police Station.

That is scheduled to be ready in 2010 and the officers will have a week of training for the implementation of phase four.

But UBP Senator Michael Dunkley said he was concerned that the amended document read out was too convoluted, making the implementation of it equally difficult.

He said: "PACE will not do anything unless it's implemented properly. It's misleading. We need a committee to push out the bill.

"We have got to get our jobs right. Stage four, that's going to expand into 2010. We support PACE and I think people want action, but there has got to be a better way."

Independent Senator Walwyn Hughes added: "I sort of share some concerns that Senator Dunkley expressed. It's going to take some massaging because it's (the legislation) complicated.

"Amendments would be improving on the thing. But this is just correcting mistakes in the original bill. It reflects badly on us.

"It's going to be a huge benefit and we need to see it through, but we don't want to make silly mistakes."

Senator David Burch said it was the first time PACE had been implemented outside of the United Kingdom and therefore would take some time to get right.

An expert from the UK had been brought in to help with the legislation and had made recommendations for improving the Hamilton Police Station to be PACE-ready.

He said: "This is not the be all and end all. There will be further amendments later on. With this legislation I ask the people just stay with us."

PACE has already helped the Police Service reform its identification systems and custody processes with further improvements for upgrading the IT infrastructure.

Also helping Police, the system will engage the community and improving its confidence in the Police, strengthen the intelligence services to improve analytical ability, enhancing systems to improve recruiting, standards, and working conditions and pursue professional accreditation with the Commission for Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies.

The Police budget in 2008/09 was increased by 10 per cent to $62.8 million to fund these programmes and initiatives.