NSW Premier Chris Minns defends $2m payment to Kathleen Folbigg who was wrongfully jailed for 20 years

Premier Chris Minns has defended a $2m payment to Kathleen Folbigg who was wrongfully jailed for 20 years over the deaths of her children, saying the money could not be not pulled from a “magic pot.” The NSW Government faced backlash over the payment, with Ms Folbigg’s lawyer Rhanee Rego calling it “woefully inadequate and ethically indefensible”. Mr Minns said it was the most amount of money the government could allocate without pulling it from other important programs. “It’s not my money, I don’t pull it out of my back pocket, it’s the taxpayers of NSW money and it doesn’t come from a magic pot,” he said. Ms Folbigg spent two decades in prison after she was found guilty of causing the deaths of her four children, Patrick (eight months), Laura (10 months), Sarah (19 months) and Caleb (19 days) in 2003. While she was initially given a 30-year jail sentence, Ms Folbigg was released in 2023, after new scientific evidence indicated there was reasonable doubt her children could have died due to natural causes or a rare genetic mutation. The premier said the payment made to Ms Folbigg was non conditional, acknowledging larger settlements from other cases had occurred as a result of legal action. He said Ms Folbigg and her lawyer were free to sue the NSW Government, which would be dealt with if they chose to pursue legal action. “This is an ex gratia payment, we’re not compelled to do it, we’re not currently in litigation,” he said. “If there were further litigation, we don’t take the $2m off the table, we accept that this is an ex gratia, non conditional payment to Ms Folbigg. “There’s no (non disclosure agreement) involved and there’s no future action that cannot be pursued by Ms Folbigg or her lawyers,” he said. “But you have to appreciate it’s not my money, this is public money we’d have to take from another initiative.” Ms Rego told Nine News on Thursday that the system had failed her client once again. “Kathleen lost her four children; she lost 20 of the best years of her life; and she continues to feel the lasting effects of this ongoing trauma,” she said. “The payment does not reflect the extent of the pain and suffering Kathleen has endured. This should be about the system recognising the significance of what it did to her.” Ms Rego indicated that they would go back to the government for a better payout. “We will keep fighting because the government should not be able to think that they can provide a figure like this for taking away two decades of someone’s life,” she said.