IT is not often that an industry calls on the government to shut it down, especially at a time when some of its practitioners report they are "flat out" at work.
But that's the situation with the Australian Hairdressing Council, which is calling on the Morrison government to shut down hairdressers by adding them to a list of prohibited "non-essential" services drawn up by Canberra as one of many restrictions introduced to minimise the spread of COVID-19.
As things stand, hairdressers and barbers are allowed to operate under the "one person per four square metre" rule.
An early time limit of 30 minutes per customer was dropped after the government accepted it was impractical.
Other "beauty and personal care services" including nail, waxing and tanning salons and spas, massage and tattoo parlours have been told to close their doors.
The council, formed in 2010 and run by prominent Newcastle hairdresser Sandy Chong, is one of two industry peak bodies, the other being the Hair and Beauty Industry Association.
Both are in active communication with their members, and Ms Chong says the AHC's call to close the industry is bolstered by a petition carrying almost 45,000 signatures.
Ms Chong says the call to shut the industry is driven by a desire to protect salon workers and help stop the spread of coronavirus.
Clearly, the intimate contact involved in cutting and styling hair is at odds with the all-important message of social distancing, even if hairdressers are wearing surgical masks, with scissors and hair-clips sterilised between cuts and the rest of the equipment cleaned as often as possible.
Ms Chong shuttered her business three weeks ago, but many other salons around the region remain open.
In the same way that the beach has become a focus of disquiet over the definition of "exercise", people ask why hairdressing should be considered "essential".
This question has no obvious answer but as we have observed before in this space, coronavirus policy will always be a trade-off between the costs and benefits of a particular action.
Australia has an estimated 70,000 hairdressers and barbers, about half of whom work from home, which would make a complete shutdown hard to enforce.
Regardless of where the cutting is done, it could be that the pleasure and social interaction promised by a trip to the hairdressers, as much as the cut itself, is a reason the government decided to allow the sector to keep trading.
On the other hand, as Ms Chong says, going without a haircut won't kill you, while catching the virus might.
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