Influential independent MP Alex Greenwich will attempt to force the next NSW government to extend legal protections against hate speech to the LGBTQ community, religious people and the disabled, after Labor rejected the recommendations of its own special inquiry into the laws.

After months of secrecy over the review of hate speech by former justice John Sackar, KC, the Minns government on Tuesday rejected the key recommendation that it should rebalance hate speech laws by offering all groups equal protection.

It came after Sackar’s review found changes made by Labor to address concerns over antisemitism had created a hierarchical system of legal protections that was detrimental to social cohesion.

After the government rejected the report’s findings, Greenwich told the Herald he would seek to develop a package of reforms aligned with Sackar’s recommendations to take to the next election.

Sackar’s review, he said, “reflects the community’s expectation that our laws should protect everyone equally, without exemptions that shield perpetrators of hate”.

“It provides parliament with a clear mandate to act to stop hate before it escalates to violence.”

Greenwich said his fledgling reforms would include additional changes to amend the state’s Anti-Discrimination Act to end the ability of private schools to sack staff because of their sexuality, a major plank of the equality bill he introduced in this term of parliament that he dropped after opposition from Labor.

Greenwich linked the changes to the Independent Commission Against Corruption’s explosive Operation Rosny inquiry, which has heard allegations that Catholic Schools NSW helped fund a group of right-faction apparatchiks in the NSW Liberals to stack local party branches to preselect conservative candidates in NSW.

“The current ICAC inquiry has exposed serious allegations about the influence that some right-wing operatives within Catholic Schools NSW have sought to exert over public policy,” Greenwich said.

“It is time for parliament to take a stand, reject that influence and make NSW a safer and fairer place for vulnerable communities.”

Greenwich’s decision to push the hate speech changes will put significant pressure on Labor if, as expected, it is re-elected in March.

The high-profile independent member for Sydney MP has successfully shepherded a series of high-profile bills through NSW parliament, including the decriminalisation of abortion, and has been a crucial vote for the minority Labor government during its first term.

The recommendation to re-balance hate speech laws was the key finding of Sackar’s 157-page special inquiry, which the Minns government commissioned after Greenwich pushed for it in exchange for his support for the laws.

Sackar’s review found hurried changes made to hate speech laws following a string of antisemitic incidents last year had created the perception of a “hierarchical, two-tier model of protection” that was “detrimental to social cohesion”.

Labor’s changes established a new section, 93ZAA of the Crimes Act, which made it a crime to intentionally and publicly incite hatred towards another person, or group of people, on the grounds of race.

The change came on top of the existing 93Z laws, which make it a criminal offence to incite violence based on someone’s race, religion or sexuality.

“In my view, this is detrimental to social cohesion – both offences ought to protect the same groups to prevent any perception of a ‘hierarchical, two-tier model of protection’,” Sackar found in his review.

At the time, Attorney-General Michael Daley said the government would continue to review broader changes “to address hate speech based on other attributes”. But the government has now walked away from that.

Labor’s decision to release the review on Tuesday, after months of resistance to attempts from Greens and other MPs in the NSW upper house, along with a statement rejecting its recommendations, while both the public and MPs were enraptured by the ICAC inquiry, prompted immediate backlash.

Equality Australia legal director Heather Corkhill said the decision not to expand the laws would leave LGBTQ people “exposed to harm”.

“No community should be left without protection when they are being targeted by hate,” Corkhill said, arguing it was disingenuous for the government to claim competing rights could be balanced only when it came to racial vilification laws.

UNSW law professor Rosalind Dixon said the Sackar report “makes a compelling argument that there should be equality in the civil and criminal treatment” of vilification grounds.

“At the same time, criminal penalties impose an especially significant burden on freedom of political communication and freedom of expression,” Dixon said.

The Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ), which argued for the existing NSW law on race to be strengthened, said criminal laws across Australia had been mostly ineffective.

“These laws set the bar so high that even when there has been a public outcry against the hate-mongering it has not even been possible to launch a prosecution, let alone secure a conviction of the perpetrators,” ECAJ co-chief executive Peter Wertheim said.