By Tom Wark in Sydney

A woman wrongfully convicted of killing her children can’t expect more than $2 million in compensation for the 20 lost years she spent in jail.

NSW Premier Chris Minns says Kathleen Folbigg’s lawyers are free to sue the state government if they feel the grace payment is inadequate, but he won’t budge without a court order.

“There’s no future action that cannot be pursued by Ms Folbigg or her lawyers,” Mr Minns said on Friday.

“It’s not my money. This is public money. We’d have to take it from another initiative.

“This was the most amount that we could justify, given it would come from other resources.”

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

NSW Attorney-General Michael Daley said on Thursday he decided to make an ex-gratia payment to the 58-year-old, more than a year after a compensation claim was submitted to the government.

Unlike court-run compensation claims, which have precedents, ex-gratia payments are one-off matters and are a decision of state cabinets.

Against the NSW annual budget of $128 billion, the amount offered to Ms Folbigg represents about 0.0015 per cent.

That’s the equivalent of the average full-time Australian worker parting with $1.50.

The government’s offer was unfair and far too low, Opposition leader Mark Speakman said on Friday.

“This is all about showing some empathy for someone whose conviction has been overturned,” he told Nine’s Today show.

“Her conviction was wrongful. She suffered enormously.”

Ms Folbigg’s solicitor described the payment offer on Thursday as a “moral affront”.

“The system has failed Kathleen Folbigg once again,” Rhanee Rego said in a statement.

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

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

Ms Folbigg joins Lindy Chamberlain among a rare number of Australians who were jailed for long periods but later acquitted and offered compensation.

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