NZ’s Pony-Tailgate Is Weird but We Should Still Take it Seriously

The surreal story of New Zealand Prime Minister John Key repeatedly pulling the hair of a cafe waitress has spiraled into a debate about journalistic ethics this week. The last few days have seen the strange tale unfold in front of the world, starting on Wednesday morning when a prominent left-wing blog printed the first-hand account from an anonymous young woman. The woman described feeling physically and emotionally tormented by the PM when he frequented her place of work and regularly tugged on her ponytail, despite her obvious distaste. It makes for cringe-worthy reading.

The concise account clearly details how Key literally stalked her around the cafe to pull her "tantalising" ponytail over several visits. It outlines occasions where the PM went out of his way to touch her, adding: "He was like the schoolyard bully tugging on the little girls' hair trying to get a reaction, experiencing that feeling of power over her," she wrote. "It seemed as though the more I disliked it and made myself absent the more fun it became for him, the more he enjoyed the challenge of approaching from behind me, unsuspected."

Despite the Prime Minister's eventual apology to the woman—in the form of two bottles of his personally labelled wine—the woman concluded she needed to tell the story because "it seems he needs reminding that he's not a god, he's just a man".

It has to be the bizarrest series of reported events since the media clusterfuck that was the 2014 general election. But if it wasn't bizarre enough, the story didn't stop there. The strange tale was already grabbing international headlines, Tweeters were cooking up unimaginative hashtags like #ponytailgate, and the mainstream media was just getting its hooks into this juicy piece of news. Especially since it wasn't the first time Key has been caught pulling ponytails.

En-route to Gallipoli commemorations in Turkey, Key offered a public apology, of sorts, saying they were just "horsing around". But it took less than a day for the New Zealand Herald to track down the anonymous waitress, and this is where things got messy. A reporter for the paper, Rachel Glucina, who over the years has carved out a reputation as a fearsome gossip columnist, met with the waitress and her employers—a couple who own a string of cafes under the name Hip Group. The Herald published a frontpage story from Glucina, with a photo of the cafe owners and the waitress, naming them all. But the waitress, a 26-year-old named Amanda Bailey says she was falsely led into giving the interview with Glucina. In a subsequent blog post, says she was told by her employers that Glucina was a friend that worked as a PR consultant, and she was going to help prepare an official statement from the three. It was only afterwards that Bailey discovered Glucina was visiting in her capacity as a reporter for the Herald. When she realised, she revoked permission for her name and photo to be used but the paper pressed on and printed the story anyhow. Following Bailey's damning second blog post the Herald released an editor's statement attempting to sweep Bailey's claims under the carpet, but awkwardly, the statement was tweaked three times after being published online. It also turns out Glucina is well-noted chums with the Prime Minister, and her brother works for Hip Group.

A statement released from the Service and Food Workers Union yesterday afternoon condemning the cafe owners for not acting in good faith and misleading their employee into talking to a journalist. "Regardless of the employer's intention, they've chosen one of New Zealand's most pro-Key journalists to help them, and have misled Amanda in doing so," union spokesperson Andrea Rushton said.

Then, in an ill-conceived retort last night, another of the Prime Minister's most outspoken media supporters broadcaster Mike Hoskings announced live on-air on the show Seven Sharp that the cafe owners were "good hardworking people" and "victims in an agenda driven circus".

The real circus, as argued by many social media commentators, is that this story has largely become a sideshow about journalistic ethics, or cheap jokes about the Prime Minister's ponytail fetish, rather than focussing on the issue of a world leader abusing their position of power, treating the working class as his playthings, and ultimately getting away with it.

Political commentators say that while Key may have become a "laughing stock" around the globe, which may knock his popularity down a peg or two, the saga is unlikely to undo him as Prime Minister. From his current location at the Gallipoli commemorations in Turkey, Key can avoid the kind of media scrutiny he might come under if he was at home, and in the meantime the Minister for Women, Louise Upston, is staunchly defending him on home turf.

So, as in many situations where women complain about harassment, the victim has now become the defendant. In his vicious rant, broadcaster Mike Hoskings called her claims a "puffed up, self-involved pile of political bollocks". But as the National Women's Council and The Human Rights Commission asserted from the get-go, it is never OK to touch someone without their permission. "Talking about what's acceptable and what isn't is a conversation worth having and one every New Zealander needs to be part of," said Human Rights Commissioner Dr Jackie Blue, who interestingly, is a former minister of parliament for John Key's National Party.

It is uncertain where things will wind up from here, but one person is already pushed forward with a sexual harassment claim has been laid against Key. Private prosecutor Graham McCready has alleged that the Prime Minister breached the Human Rights Act and is seeking "considerable compensation" for Amanda Bailey, but said "if she does not want it I ask for the money be given to Women's Refuge".

Follow Danielle on Twitter: @danielle_street

Image by Ben Thomson.