Wellington, April 22: John Key, the New Zealand Prime Minister, has apologised to a waitress for repeatedly pulling her ponytail in behaviour that has been compared with "schoolyard bullying".

In what critics are calling a bizarre lapse of judgment by a politician noted for his usually polished appearances in public, Key maintains the hair pulling was simply "a bit of banter" at an Auckland cafe that he and his wife Bronagh frequent.

The unnamed waitress took to Left-wing website The Daily Blog to air her complaints against the Prime Minister, saying his antics took place on at least six different occasions over a period of months last year.

She says she initially dismissed Key's behaviour as playful, but when he kept pulling at her hair on subsequent visits to the cafe she was reduced to tears.

Eventually, she became so upset that she told Key's security staff: "One day I'll snap and I'll punch him in the face."

She wrote in the blog: "He was like the schoolyard bully tugging on the little girl's hair, trying to get a reaction, experiencing that feeling of power over her.

"I would think to myself, even a five-year-old could tell you that if you pull on a girl's hair she will not like it. I shouldn't have to tell the Prime Minister that I don't like it when he pulls my hair."

The waitress claims Key, 53, continued to target her even when her body language suggested she was very uncomfortable with the attention.

He would sometimes blame the hair pulling on his wife Bronagh, who was usually with him, she wrote. At one point, Bronagh Key told her husband to "leave the poor girl alone" but the Prime Minister gave the impression "that he just did not care", the waitress wrote.

She says Key finally got the message and apologised, dropping off two bottles of wine and telling her he had not realised how much she disliked his behaviour.

"Really?! That was almost more offensive than the harassment itself," she wrote.

Responding to the website claims, a spokesman for Key's office said: "His actions were intended to be light-hearted.

"It was never his intention to make her feel uncomfortable and he has apologised to her."

Speaking to reporters on his way to Anzac Day commemorations at Gallipoli in Turkey, Key said: "It's a cafe I go to very regularly. I've been going there for years, we have a fun relationship.

"There's always horsing around and sort of practical jokes, and that's all there really was to it."

But his actions have come under fire from Opposition MPs and employees' rights advocates.

Metiria Turei, Green Party co-leader, described Key's behaviour as "weird".

"New Zealanders know you can't walk into a cafe and start tugging on someone's hair, especially if they've told you they don't like it," she said.

"John Key should be held to the same standards as the rest of us."

And Susan Hornsby-Geluk, a Wellington employment lawyer, said pulling a waitress's hair could be classified as sexual harassment.

Any physical contact with another person that is "uninvited and uncomfortable could constitute harassment or inappropriate conduct", she told the Fairfax website stuff.co.nz. "I find it quite bizarre that the prime minister would put himself in a position that he would be subject to these types of claims."

The Daily Telegraph