Kathleen Folbigg’s best friend has taken aim at the $2 million ex gratia payment offered by the government to Folbigg after she was wrongfully convicted of killing her children and locked up for 20 years.

Folbigg, now 58, was jailed over the deaths of her four children before being freed in June 2023 after new scientific evidence cast reasonable doubt over her convictions.

NSW Attorney-General Michael Daley said he decided to make an ex-gratia payment to Folbigg, more than a year after a compensation claim was submitted to the government.

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Tracy Chapman, Folbigg’s live-in best friend, was joined by Folbigg’s lawyer Rhanee Rego on Sunrise on Friday, where they were questioned on the financial offer.

“I was as shocked as everyone else. It was absolutely disgraceful,” Chapman told hosts Nat Barr and Matt Shirvington.

“We talk about what is fair and what is humane all the time. Unfortunately, you come back to the same answers.

“This is not fair. It’s inhumane. (But) Sadly, not surprising.

“Remembering, Kath has been exonerated. This is a wrongful conviction. She has the ongoing pain and suffering. The trauma. We’ve all had to live with that every day.

“It’s not like that can be put in a suitcase and put under the bed. This is going to be with her during the rest of her days.”

Chapman went on to explain Folbigg also has functional needs.

Chapman said: “Life is very expensive. Even having her here for seven months. It was so hard and so expensive. You have to be realistic. Then we have ageism in the workforce. So, realistically, what is Kath going to do?

“She can’t just go and get a job. The average age of retirement is 56. It’s just an insult.”

Folbigg’s lawyer Rhanee Rego said she was not shocked, with Folbigg being treated poorly by the system since 1999.

“The Nationals and the Greens have called for a parliamentary inquiry into the decision of the NSW Attorney General. We fully support that, to understand how they came to this figure,” Rego said.

Folbigg joins Lindy Chamberlain a small number of Australians who have been jailed but later acquitted and offered compensation.

Chamberlain and her former husband Michael were awarded an ex gratia payment of $1.3 million in 1992 for their prosecution in the Northern Territory over the death of baby daughter Azaria.

West Australian man Scott Austic in May received $1.3 million on top of an earlier payment of $250,000 after serving nearly 13 years for murdering his pregnant secret lover. He had sought $8.5 million after being acquitted in 2020 on appeal.

Both payments were ex gratia, unlike David Eastman who was awarded $7 million in damages by the ACT Supreme Court in 2019.

“I still don’t want to put a figure on it,” Rego said.

“I am also like everyone else. How do you put a figure on a woman’s life?

“The ex gratia payment system is there for victims. We now know what the government thinks 20 years of a woman’s life, wrongfully imprisoned, is worth. And that’s $2 million.

“Which is worrying not just for Kath, but for everyone else out there.”

Chapman said the system has never taken responsibility for what was wrongfully done to Folbigg.

“There’s still not apology,” she said.

“I am disgusted. Actually, I am beyond disgusted. We live in a democracy. These people are supposed to talk to us. There’s never been any communication that is decent.

“We’re writing a book at the moment. The whole reason for that is to lay bare everything that has happened to us. It’s disgraceful.

“I wouldn’t treat people like this.”

Greens MP Sue Higginson described the offer as “an absolute slap in the face”.

“And a failure of the NSW premier to uphold the principles of fairness and justice,” Higginson said.

“Kathleen Folbigg was imprisoned for 20 years, accused wrongly of the murder of her own children.

“She has suffered. She has now been released. She is owed compensation that rights the wrong of this state.”

Nationals MP Wes Fang said the offer was made the same day upper house members pushed for an inquiry into the payment.

Unlike court-run compensation claims with a series of precedents, ex gratia payments are one-off matters and are expected to be a decision of state cabinet.

Folbigg was convicted of three counts of murder and one count of manslaughter following the deaths of her children between 1989 and 1999.

She appealed successfully against her convictions after scientific discoveries in genetics and cardiology cast doubt on her guilt following two inquiries into her verdicts.

In 2024, Rego told AAP the compensation claim included a lengthy statement explaining her 24-year experience with the matter, submissions detailing errors by agents of government and an expert report assessing loss suffered by the former prisoner.

Folbigg had previously sought a meeting with Premier Chris Minns, but he refused on the grounds she was in the middle of negotiations with the attorney general.

- with AAP