The Industrial Relations Commission will decide the fate of the 12-month pay pause, pursued in the wake of COVID-19 but then reversed by the NSW upper house on Tuesday night.

Unions for nurses and paramedics at Dubbo are fiercely opposing the policy, arguing it is a blow to essential workers that will ripple throughout the economies of rural and regional NSW.

But Dubbo MP Dugald Saunders defended the wage freeze, saying it was "not a pay cut" and would allow funds to go to job-creating projects to help others who had lost employment in the pandemic.

Members of the Dubbo Hospital branch of the NSW Nurses and Midwives' Association on Tuesday held up signs to publicly show their opposition to the policy.

Branch secretary Lauren Lye said nurses were "outraged" by the freeze.

"Especially during these times, the pandemic, emergency workers and nurses are putting their lives on the line to look after our community, and it was quite insulting we weren't going to get our annual 2.5 per cent [increase]," she said.

On Wednesday on the eve of the matter going to the industrial umpire, Ms Lye was "still nervous about how it's going to play out".

Gilgandra-based Australian Paramedics Association of NSW executive officer Scott Beaton said in real terms "the pay cut means a loss of $10,000 over five years for a paramedic".

"Regional communities have already been devastated by the drought and bushfires," he said.

"Now is not the time to be removing more money from these areas."

He cited a report by the Australia Institute, which found the Orana and Far West region would lose about $78 million from a one-year wage freeze.

"That kind of loss is incredibly damaging to regional communities," Mr Beaton said.

Mr Saunders said the pause was to "protect public service jobs and stimulate job creation in response to COVID-19".

"Let's be clear though, this is not a pay cut," he said.

"The policy change will mean current pay levels for NSW public servants are retained, with an unprecedented guarantee of no forced redundancies across the NSW public sector for a year.

"...While this was a difficult decision for the government, we believe it is both fair and necessary in circumstances where more than 220,000 workers in NSW have lost their jobs since March 2020, while total wages across the state have fallen by a cumulative 4.9 per cent," he said.

"It's also worth noting that nearly 90 percent of NSW workers are in the private sector, which has been dramatically impacted.

"We all know people who have been affected whether by forced stand-downs, leave without pay, significant pay cuts, job uncertainty or losing their livelihoods altogether."

He said suggestions of regional NSW missing out financially were "way off the mark".

"The change will allow us to focus public expenditure on initiatives that create jobs for the people of NSW, ensuring that the hundreds of thousands of NSW citizens who have been made jobless by COVID-19 have the opportunity to get back into the workforce and recover their livelihoods as quickly as possible," he said.

"I am also confident that the Dubbo electorate will continue to benefit from our $100 billion infrastructure pipeline."