Community independent for the blue-ribbon seat of Bradfield, Nicolette Boele, shared an attempt at humour with a young hairdresser that was inappropriate and awkward.
The hair salon, Envy Room, is across the road from Boele’s campaign office in Gordon on Sydney’s North Shore. It has since banned Boele from ever walking in for services again.
We know this because the salon owner’s husband emailed 2GB’s Ben Fordham to let him know, and Fordham shared the story live on air during Nine’s 2GB morning broadcast.
From The Age to the Sydney Morning Herald and Sky News, the mainstream media have had an absolute field day sharing the news. Boele had made a sexual joke to a “teenager,” screamed the breaking news alert from the SMH (so breaking that a phone notification was required). Sky News sent a report to do a live cross from the sale. The ABC, The Australian, the Daily Mail, and News.com.au have all been hot on the story.
A teal candidate! Shouldn’t they be flawless? Shouldn’t they adhere to standards well above every other man in politics, and certainly above any man or woman in one of the two major parties?
The recipient of the attempted joke was a 19-year-old hairdressing apprentice in the salon. Boele is alleged to have told her that the hair wash she received was “so good and I didn’t even have sex with you.”
Yes, not particularly funny. Awkward.
But is it the cancellation event that many in the media are pinning it up to be, with suggestions that Boele’s campaign is in tatters? Especially for a woman with a long list of credentials to make a run for a once Liberal safe seat, one she came narrowly close to securing at the last Federal election?
Boele has not denied making the comment. Rather, she apologised. “It was a poor attempt at humour and I’ve apologised,” she said in a statement. “Everyone deserves to feel respected in their workplaces I’ll do better.”
Meanwhile, a quick scan of the hair salon’s social media reveals that it has some flexible ideas about what is and isn’t inappropriate or offensive.
One video posted to Envy Room’s Instagram account includes a staff member fake kidnapping a young woman walking down the street.
Posted a week ago, the video depicts the woman walking past the salon when a man grabs her around the mouth, points a hairdryer at her head as if it’s a gun, and then drags her up the stairs into the salon while she pretends to kick and scream. Next, we see the young woman with blue tape over her mouth, as her “kidnapper” cuts her hair. The joke? “When the boss tells Shannon to attack more clients.” The post’s caption reads: “No apprentices were harmed in the making of this video 😂.” Hilarious.
None of this should diminish the fact that the apprentice who washed Boele’s hair may have felt disrespected in her workplace by a candidate running for election.
But much of it presents a clear example of the higher standards a woman running for office has to contend with.