Another 100% cost blowout

The Herald reports:

The administration costs for the Government’s gun buyback scheme are believed to have cost nearly double the initial estimate, a report shows. …

In March last year, police produced an initial estimate of $18m to administer the scheme.

“The estimate was based on limited information from the Australian buyback scheme and was completed quickly, before the costs of the supporting technology were fully known,” Ryan said.

“The police now estimate that, once fully completed, administering the scheme will have cost up to $35m. This includes costs of tracked staff time, contractors, and goods and services.

Maybe to make it easier in future we should just automatically double whatever the Government says something will cost, to get an idea of the likely real cost.