A teal candidate has been banned for life from her local hairdresser after making a sexualised comment to a 19-year-old staff member.
Nicolette Boele, the independent challenger for the Liberal-held Sydney seat of Bradfield, was banned from the Envy Room salon in Gordon, north west of Sydney, after she allegedly told a 19-year-old female staff member who had washed her hair: ‘That was amazing – and I didn’t even have sex with you’, according to 2GB.
A staff member at the salon told Daily Mail Australia that Ms Boele had been banned ‘indefinitely’.
‘She (the staff member) was in shock and quite upset afterwards,’ the staff member added.
‘We wrote to her (Ms Boele) last week to tell her that we will no longer have her here.’
Ms Boele, who styles herself as the ‘Shadow Representative for the People of Bradfield’, admitted it was a ‘poor attempt at humour and I’ve apologised’.
‘Everyone deserves to feel respected in their workplace and I will do better,’ she said.
Ms Boele narrowly lost the last election to Liberal former frontbencher Paul Fletcher in Bradfield, which runs the length of Sydney’s North Shore.
Nicolette Boele (pictured), the independent challenger for the Liberal-held seat of Bradfield, was banned from the Envy Room salon in Gordon, north west of Sydney , after she allegedly told a 19-year-old female staff member who had washed her hair: ‘That was amazing, and I didn’t even have sex with you’
A staff member at the salon (pictured) told Daily Mail Australia that Ms Boele had been banned ‘indefinitely’
But Mr Fletcher is retiring and the seat has been redistributed, meaning that Ms Boele is now widely considered to be the odds-on favourite to beat Liberal candidate, Gisele Kapterian.
Ms Boele’s campaign, which is funded by Simon Holmes a Court’s Climate200, has been emboldened by Mr Fletcher’s retirement and the recruitment of over 1,000 volunteers.
The small army is encouraged to pound the pavements and ‘offer doggie bandanas to dog owners as a conversation starter’.
But she has been forced to defend her credibility in recent days after the Liberals accused her campaign’s ‘misleading’ use of ‘push polling’ – a form of telemarketing-based propaganda designed to influence votes.
Residents in Bradfield were bombarded with text messages by pollster uComms, which talked up Ms Boele’s credentials as a ‘clean-energy executive’ and her role as ‘local mum’ The Australian reported.
Another question suggested that Ms Boele was ‘fed up with her community being taken for granted’.
It insisted that she would ‘stand as a representative of the people and ‘reflect the community’s values’.
Residents were then asked: ‘Knowing what you do now, which of the following would receive your first preference vote in the House of Representatives if an election was held today?’
Ms Boele admitted it was a ‘poor attempt at humour and I’ve apologised’. ‘Everyone deserves to feel respected in their workplace and I will do better,’ she said
Liberal campaign spokesman James Paterson told the paper that ‘Teal politicians talk a big game about integrity and transparency, but their actions tell a different story’.
‘From misleading push polling to refusing to say who they would support in a hung parliament, they consistently hide their true agenda from voters,’ Mr Paterson said.
‘Voters deserve honesty, not political games from a group that claims to be independent while marching in lock-step with the Greens.’
More to come.
Australia PoliticsBen Fordham
