Councillors have overturned the ban after just two weeks following nationwide attention.
The ban on books featuring same-sex parents from being shown at Cumberland City Council libraries has been overturned following a chaotic 4-hour meeting last night.
At 10:41pm AEDT, following hours of debate and public gallery speakers which at times turned into shouting matches, councillors voted 13-2 to overturn the ban.
The motion to rescind was introduced by Labor's Kun Huang and Sabrin Farooqui, in response to the amendment on 1 May introduced by Our Local Community (OLC) councillors Steve Christou and Paul Garrard.
All eight Labor councillors voted to remove the ban, including Ola Hamed, who walked out of the last vote but spoke at lengths opposing it last night.
Additionally, Mohamad Hussein, the only Labor councillor who backed the ban last time, voted at the last minute to remove it despite having spoken an hour earlier seemingly in favour of the ban.
Two of the three Our Local Community councillors, Garrard and Helen Hughes, flipped to support removing the ban, leaving Steve Christou with only independent Eddy Sarkis for support.
Sarkis left OLC in February after not being preselected for the September local elections. Yesterday morning, he had told the Sydney Morning Herald that he would vote to remove the ban:
"This motion that was moved by Councillor Christou, I knew nothing about...Yesterday I took it upon myself to get the book that had been banned. I read the book and have come to the conclusion that nothing sexualises children in this book" − Sarkis yesterday morning
It's unclear why he changed his stance at the last minute.
Also changing their stances were Michael Zaiter (Independent Liberal) and Greg Cummings (The Independents).
The remaining councillor, Joseph Rahme (Independent Liberal) was not in attendance for the second meeting in a row.
Among the public gallery speakers were former Liberal-turned UAP MP Craig Kelly, who is now a member of Pauline Hanson's One Nation, along with Hawkesbury Greens councillor Danielle Wheeler and former Cumberland Labor councillor George Campbell.
You can watch a full replay of the council meeting here.