Community A
petition was created on 2 May by Cumberland resident Caroline Staples calling for the council to rescind the motion. Christou was mocked after he admitted that he had not read the book before banning it. Sydney author
Will Kostakis called the decision "a dangerous precedent."
Politicians NSW Arts Minister John Graham told the council that the ban could affect their funding and that it violated the freedom of access to information guidelines under the Library Act 1939 which states that materials "should not be excluded from a public library on moral, political, racial, religious, sexist, language, or other grounds" and threatened that the council could risk its library funding. NSW premier
Chris Minns called the ban "ridiculous" and "a joke"
Inner West Mayor Darcy Byrne criticised the ban by saying "If someone as deliberately divisive as Councillor Steve Christou thinks the Inner West is too inclusive and respectful, we wear that as a badge of honour" and called the vote "pathetic".
NSW Health Minister Ryan Park disapproved of the ban, saying, "If we're going to have a council operate and start to become a censorship body, then we will have a look at the public funds that we provide them. I don't think it's a wise idea for a council to start censoring what their local residents and ratepayers choose to read or not."
Organisations The
Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA) released a statement on 8 May promoting
freedom of information, and said they were "appalled" by the ban, and cited APLA-ALIA Standards and Guidelines for Australian Public Libraries, "public library collections should cover a wide range of popular topics, express a variety of viewpoints and cultural understandings, and represent a diversity of people, places, events, issues and ideas." On 9 May, the CEO of ALIA Trish Hepworth met with
ABC News and said that the ban was part of a trend of increasing attempts to ban books in libraries, following
similar trends in the USA, particularly
regarding LGBT content. ALIA later released a further statement saying they had
pro-bono lawyers helping write to the Cumberland Council discussing legal concerns relating to the ban. The
State Library of New South Wales made a statement supporting the Arts Minister and criticising Cumberland City Council's decision: "It's up to readers to choose what they want to read." which the
State Library of Queensland also supported.
National and State Libraries Australasia released a statement discussing the importance of diversity in library collections and of libraries as "public spaces for discovery and access to information" and support of ALIAs initial statement. The
Council of Australian University Librarians called on the council to reverse the decision, saying they were "deeply concerned."
NSW Public Libraries Association president Romola Hollywood stated the Cumberland City Council's decision was against the
Library Council of New South Wales guidelines for freedom of access to information as per the NSW Library Act 1939 and recognised "the important work that council-run public libraries across NSW undertake each and every day to provide opportunities for people of all backgrounds and identities to have the freedom to read and access information in safety and without judgment."
Equality Australia representative Ghassan Kassisieh said "The council seems to be clinging to some kind of backward stereotype that people in Western Sydney are bigoted and can't decide for themselves what to borrow from the local library." To demonstrate the appropriateness of the content, the publisher also publicly released a digital copy of the book. == Repeal ==