The $150 million pumped into the gun buy back scheme in Budget 2019 is a midpoint estimate, the Prime Minister said today.
The Government will buy back from gun owners their semi-automatic weapons after they were banned in the wake of the Christchurch terrorist attack.
Today Jacinda Ardern said "New Zealanders really support the idea of getting these weapons out of circulation", when asked how much was too much to pay.
"We will make the ban work."
Ms Ardern said "one of the really telling things of our gun laws in New Zealand is that we have military semi automatics in circulation and just no idea how many there were".
"That never stopped us in Government from recognising taking them out of circulation was the right thing to do."
"We have estimates, we have taken a midpoint and budgeted for that, if we find we have more than that returned of course we have between Budget contingencies and the ability as a Government to meet that need.
"We have had to make estimates," Jacinda Ardern said.
Budget 2019 allocated $150 million for the firearms buy back scheme, and $18 million for the implementation of the scheme.
Read: Gun owners say $150m for buyback scheme 'won't cut it'
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