More than 70,000 people have put their name to an online petition to support a gang-rape victim whose compensation was cut due to a New South Wales law change.

Katrina Keshishian was 20 when she was raped after meeting a man at a leagues club at St Marys, in Sydney's west, in 2008.

Ms Keshishian said she had consensual sex with the man, but he then invited two of his friends to hold her down and rape her.

She told the ABC's 7.30 program she applied for victim-of-crime compensation and was classified as a victim of a 'category three' sexual assault, making her entitled to a compensation payment between $25,000 and $50,000.

Her claim was approved in June after a six-year wait, but the NSW Government retrospectively changed compensation awards for victims as the claim was being processed, and her payout was reduced to $15,000.

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By 3:00pm (AEDT) today, 72,363 people had put their name to Ms Keshishian's petition, hosted by website Change.org.

It accuses the Government of "turning their back on help they had once promised" and calls for it to "pay the victims of crime compensation as it was in 2008 when the crime was committed".

"Our society now claims to be against acts of violence against women but really it is just words if we do not act and support and protect women," wrote signatory Elizabeth Allotta of Brisbane.

"Six years [to process the claim] is inexcusable."

Alfred Low of Mt Hawthorn posted: "The Government's dithering and inefficiency is just wrong."

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Ms Keshishian said she had borrowed money and "paid through the nose" for psychological help.

She said the retrospective change was unfair to her and the "hundreds or thousands of other people that are going through the same thing that I'm going through".

About 24,000 victims of crime had their compensation retrospectively cut last year when the law was enacted.

'Escalating number of victims' led to payment cuts

NSW Attorney-General Brad Hazzard said the Government had to provide a scheme that was financially sustainable.

Mr Hazzard told 7.30 he was shocked by Ms Keshishian's attack, but the compensation scheme had been changed for good reason.

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He declined to comment further today, but his office referred the ABC to a review of the Victims Compensation Fund published in July 2012.

The review, conducted by consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers, found the scheme was "financially unsustainable within current funding constraints".

It found there were $392 million worth of unresolved claims as of June 2012, and the figure was expected to rise by $38 million each year.

"The scheme has an escalating number of victims pursuing compensation and counselling, while the funding provided to meet those claims remains unchanged," the report said.

Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume. Watch Duration: 7 minutes 45 seconds 7 m Watch 7.30's story on Katrina Keshishian

"There are only two levers available to address this imbalance: increase funding levels and/or reduce scheme costs."

Mr Hazzard said the advice left the Government with a difficult decision.

"Each of us who are in that difficult position of having to look at whether or not a particular compensation scheme is appropriate or not, agonise for people like Katrina and people in the same situation – it's awful," he told 7.30.

"But at the end of the day we also have to make sure that we're providing a scheme, a system, that's sustainable, financially, for the state."