Reforms to Australia's largest workers compensation scheme are set to be delayed as controversial changes to the system are sent to an inquiry.
NSW's Labor government had been scrambling to rush reform through parliament before the end of June, warning of increasing insurance premiums.
But the state's upper house voted to send the proposed changes to a committee on Thursday evening.
That motion was brought by the opposition leader in the upper house, Damien Tudehope, who said an inquiry would need to view the modelling Treasurer Daniel Mookhey had relied on when pitching the changes.
The government would have started pushing for its reforms earlier if they were so important, he said.
"This could have been started last October … and it would not have been met with this amount of fire and brimstone within the public sphere," Mr Tudehope told parliament.
"This has been a bad process."
The plans had cleared the first hurdle in NSW parliament, with amendments in the lower house putting more specific requirements around a review of the scheme after two years.
The review would be conducted by an expert panel including union and business representatives and assess whether the changes have improved return-to-work rates and the scheme's sustainability.
Mr Mookhey said Mr Tudehope was styling himself as a "new-found champion of injured workers" and needed to "tell them the full facts" about the coalition's management of the scheme.
He has previously said the changes were urgent because "every day we delay reform is a day in which the reform task becomes harder".
Rising insurance premiums are the biggest threat to small businesses in NSW, Premier Chris Minns has told parliament.
A snap inquiry was held about the government's exposure draft of the bill, with dozens of witnesses called to appear before a single-day hearing in May.
The NSW Council of Social Service has opposed any further inquiries.
"Essential frontline community service organisations are significantly stretched with rising delivery costs and growing demand," chief executive Cara Varian said on Thursday.
She cited a small regional neighbourhood centre where workers compensation insurance premiums had risen by 24 per cent.
A youth support service and a statewide multi-support service both had premiums increase by about 60 per cent.
"These essential services are provided on behalf of the NSW government and include homelessness, domestic, sexual and family violence, mental health, disability, and child and family support," Ms Varian said.
Michelle Gobbert runs bakeries and a real estate agency in regional NSW.
Her premiums have more than doubled in the past four years, due to some "questionable" compensation claims, she told AAP.
"There probably should have been different outcomes in those claims and they could have been handled a bit better," she said.
"The (claims service providers) … don't really care that by them prolonging stuff and not doing their job, that flows to us through increased premiums."
Ms Gobbert is a member of Business NSW, which has supported the government's plans for reform.
