It comes after tome people got multiple alerts overnight warning of strong and unusual currents after yesterday's big earthquake off Russia, while other say got they got none.
The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) has confirmed there were problems.
Emergency Management Minister Mark Mitchell said the national alert system, which hadn't been used in some time, had revealed "some shortcomings", which would be addressed.
He said NEMA would be treating the glitches very seriously.
He did not believe Kiwis would be "turned off" by the multiple texts. He said he didn't want to see people turn off their alerts and then possibly put emergency responders at risk.
"There's nothing alarmist about it - it's quite simply the best information we have at the time."
NEMA and the government would be criticised if people did not receive the latest information in a timely manner, Mitchell said.
"The best way we can respond as a country to these events is a whole-of-society approach.
"One hundred percent we got it right."
The reality was that at 6.30am on any day there would be thousands of Kiwis at the beach and they needed to know about the tsunami risk, even if it meant waking up others, Mitchell says.
"If we'd seen some drownings then everyone would be saying why weren't we notified, why didn't we know."
He'd been advised multiple alerts can be sparked by people changing between mobile phone towers.
He said NEMA was not being trigger-happy in sending out the two alerts over the last 24 hours.
"We do not have the luxury in our country to operate with optimism because when you do that, people die."
The Russian earthquake at 8.8 magnitude was one of the biggest seen in recent years and it was quickly signalled that tsunami activity was possible which could affect the entire coast of New Zealand.
"It was important to let the country know the threat that we had and give them the information they needed to make decisions."
It was "a glitch" that some people received up to six texts but NEMA would work with the telcos to find out what went wrong.
"It's good that these issues have been highlighted so we can get to work and fix them," Mitchell told Midday Report.
NEMA had an extremely important role and it needed to be "scanning the horizon" so it could alert people to any risk from natural disasters.
It was very disappointing that many people ignored the warnings and still went to the beach putting themselves and first responders at potential risk.
"So I've got a very low level of tolerance of that," Mitchell said.
