Ponytailgate: Hands off our hair- a lesson for us all

Amanda Bailey, in the foreground, and cafe owners Jackie Grant and Scott Brown. Photo / Dean Purcell

John Key's cheerleaders are furious. Their pin-up boy is taking a leading role on the international stage at Gallipoli and, instead of focusing on the 100th anniversary of one of this country's defining historical events, the rabid media are choosing to play up what the fans see as the trivial matter of the Prime Minister pulling the ponytail of a waitress.

Key's detractors are delighted. Finally, they have an issue from which the Prime Minister will come out looking, at best, foolish, and at worst, slightly creepy. What sort of adult man goes round pulling on people's ponytails? Has the Prime Minister learned nothing from the Roger Sutton affair? In fact, have we learned nothing from the inappropriate touching incident that saw a Paralympic bowler sent home from the Manchester Commonwealth Games?

Back in 2002, the man was sent packing for commenting on the size of a fine Mancunian volunteer's breasts then touching her bum. At the time, the talkback lines rang red hot. Some callers were appalled that we'd become such a PC society that a man could no longer comment on the norks of a good-looking woman.

Others suggested it was about time people learned to keep their hands to themselves.

To sheet it home, in case there are other men and women who haven't yet got the message, you don't go around touching people. Especially when there's an imbalance of power. And especially when they've asked you not to.

For those who haven't caught up with the story, the Prime Minister and his wife, Bronagh, like many of us, have a local cafe they frequent. They're regulars at Rosie Cafe in Parnell. They know the staff, including the owners Jackie Grant and Scott Brown, and the staff know them.

The Prime Minister felt he was on friendly enough terms with the wait people that he could pull on the ponytail of one of the waitresses, Amanda Bailey. He does seem to have rather a thing for ponytails, as historic news clips have shown.

Most people learn not to play with other people's ponytails or plaits at a very young age. Generally, it's 6 and 7-year-old boys who engage in hair pulling because they are too socially retarded to understand how to initiate a friendship with a young girl, although pulling ponytails is not strictly defined by gender.

The fascination with little girls' hair tends to end when the said little girls become so annoyed with the constant teasing they deck the offenders.

An elbow to the snozz at 7 might have saved the Prime Minister all this embarrassment. Anyway, the Prime Minister became aware, eventually, that the young woman really, really didn't like him toying with her and once he realised she was pissed off, he apologised and gave her two bottles of his special-edition wine.

And that, he thought, was the end of it. Until the woman published an account of the incident on a left-wing blog. Immediately, Key fans started blaming the woman.

She should have sucked it up, apparently. She's a leftie, and she's just out to get the Prime Minister. And so on, and so forth.

No, she shouldn't have had to suck it up. I worked in hospitality years ago, and the rule now is pretty much the same as the rule was back then. You don't touch the staff.

I've poured hot Kona coffee over the crotch of a drunk who had the temerity to stick his hand right up my skirt. And I punched another man in the stomach when he took advantage of me carrying a heavy tray to grope my boobs.

He wasn't counting on me simply dropping the tray and sinking my fist into his flabby stomach, but then it was his first time at the restaurant and he clearly didn't understand the way things worked.

Nobody was allowed to touch the young men and women who worked at our restaurants. If it was a crude assault, they were decked and barred. If it was inappropriate touching, as in the case of the Prime Minister, they were asked nicely to cease and desist - and I don't actually think anyone persisted after being asked to stop their errant behaviour.

The goofy dork routine that works so well for Key most of the time misfires occasionally and this is one of those times. As for the woman being political, so what? Wait staff are entitled to have political views.

The woman is being blamed; left-wing conspirators are being blamed and the media is certainly being blamed. But the only one who is really to blame is Key for behaving in a way that could be misinterpreted.

I was trying to think why he might think it was okay and I wondered if it's because so many people throw their arms around him, or go in for the kiss and the hug. I've seen him at countless functions and he gives off a warmth and openness that means people take liberties with his personal space.

Helen Clark was superb at putting up barriers that stopped people getting too close; Key doesn't do that. But just because he's okay with being touched and hugged and kissed doesn't mean other people like it. It was an egregious error of judgment. And it couldn't have come at a worse time for him - or this country.

• Kerre McIvor is on Newstalk ZB, Monday-Thursday 8pm-midnight.

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