ELIZA THORNTON: My question is for Pamela. It's well known that you've undergone medical procedures to modify your body.
PAMELA STEPHENSON: Who said that?
ELIZA THORNTON: People were created to age so why would you want to defy the natural process of the human body? Instead of encouraging people to change who they are, shouldn't we be encouraging people to be happy with themselves and their appearance?
PAMELA STEPHENSON: The answer to the first question is because I want to be a babe. The answer to the second question is absolutely. I went to Brazil at the beginning I've written my memoirs, available at all good book shops near you. The Varnished Untruth would be the name of those excellent memoirs and in the very first chapter of my memoirs - I'm sorry, I can't see where you are. Oh, there you are.
TONY JONES: Up the back there, yes.
PAMELA STEPHENSON: Hello. Thank you for the question. At the beginning of the memoir s I've written about an epiphany that I had when after yet another one of these surgical procedures to which you are referring, I went to Brazil and discovered how very culturally defined some of our notions about female appearance is. I went there and I found myself on a beach in Porto Seguro, where I was surrounded by babes of all shapes and sizes and ages wearing the tiniest bikinis you've ever seen in your life. Fio Dental they call them, that are like dental floss and just use your imagination about where that piece of dental floss went and I began to realise for the first time perhaps in my life, because as you learn from reading my memoirs, The Unvarnished Truth...
TONY JONES: Oh, come on now.
PAMELA STEPHENSON: ...available at all good book stores, that I've suffered from body image problems my entire life and so...
TONY JONES: How much, can I ask you - because you've been pretty candid about it, what sort of work are we talking about?
PAMELA STEPHENSON: Oh, shut up!
BILL SHORTEN: You've just made Q&A history there.
PAMELA STEPHENSON: Anyway, what I did realise was that that these women taught me a huge lesson. That what I should have done with the money I spent on surgery was move to Brazil, buy myself a flat there and a whole wardrobe of Fio Dentals and live happily for ever after.
TONY JONES: Let's hear from the rest of the panel. Catherine?
CATHERINE FOX: Why are you looking at me?
TONY JONES: (Indistinct)
CATHERINE FOX: No work.
PAMELA STEPHENSON: And you look gorgeous. You see...
CATHERINE FOX: Thanks very much, Pamela.
PAMELA STEPHENSON: You see, that's the thing.
CATHERINE FOX: Thank you very much. Look, I think I find the whole topic fascinating. I don't know if anyone here is a fan of Nora Efron, who sadly died earlier this year.
PAMELA STEPHENSON: Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
CATHERINE FOX: And I must say I just loved the way she wrote about ageing. I mean she angsted. You know, I'm Worried About My Neck was one of the titles of her books and it's one of the reasons - sorry, to get back on to the feminist soap box, it's one of the reasons we have to have more women speaking honestly about their lives and their ageing process and being in the workplace and being in the workplace when you're older by the way, which is an interesting thing because, for my age group, we're kind of a pioneering group. We came through university en masse for the first time thanks to Gough Whitlam, I have to say and went out and into the workplace and really there haven't been women of our age - I didn't mention my age, did I?
TONY JONES: No. No. Not yet.
CATHERINE FOX: Of my youth.
PAMELA STEPHENSON: No, but if I'm 38 then you're roughly the same.
CATHERINE FOX: I'm around the same. Roughly the same. We are roughly the same. And can I also say you're a beautiful young woman and I think issues like that for you must look very odd and you are beautiful, like my daughter's beautiful and like all young women your age are. As you get older it's very confronting. It actually is and because I'm so much of our lives we are assessed on how we look and so that's the difficulty for women particularly.
TONY JONES: Sophie, do you identify with these difficulties? I mean - no, I don't mean that in any way apart from saying...
CATHERINE FOX: Keep going.
SOPHIE MIRABELLA: Keep digging, Tony.
CATHERINE FOX: Keep going.
BILL SHORTEN: You've made me sympathetic to Sophie, Tony.
TONY JONES: I don't mean anything by it.
SOPHIE MIRABELLA: So what's the question?
TONY JONES: The young woman asked the question about whether it's better to grow old and not tamper with your body. That's really the question.
SOPHIE MIRABELLA: Well, far be it from me, a politician, telling women what to do and not what to do to make themselves feel better and what to do with their bodies and what surgical procedures they want to pay for. So I don't want to give anyone advice or I don't want to pass judgment on anyone. For myself, I'm quite happy to let the ageing process go along. You obviously try and do your best but I've watched my mother, who was an extraordinarily beautiful woman, live through a hard life and age gracefully. And to me she looks beautiful because her face is her life and besides, my husband would freak out if I had any surgery.
PAMELA STEPHENSON: Oh, don't tell him. I didn't tell Billy for ages.
SOPHIE MIRABELLA: I think he'd notice. I think he'd notice.
PAMELA STEPHENSON: No, he just thought I was ageing gracefully. I want to add, because it's a very important question, and I do want to add that...
TONY JONES: There will be a great debate about that on Twitter later, I can assure you.
PAMELA STEPHENSON: Yeah. That I have such respect for women who do nothing, who age. I admire them enormously. I wish I had the courage. I just I got to the point in my particular life and I think everybody has to make their own decision and it has to be an informed decision because let's face it, these procedures are darn dangerous. They are precarious and things can go horribly wrong so...
TONY JONES: Let's hear from Charlie down the end. You can see how dangerous it is for a bloke to get involved in these kind of discussions. Even asking questions can be dangerous.
CHARLIE PICKERING: Yeah. I'm going to tread as carefully as possible. I think everyone needs to make up their own mind. No one can be told but what I think is important is don't index your self esteem or your worth to your appearance. As long as you're not defining yourself by your appearance then you're going to be fine. You can have all the surgery in the world or you can have no surgery at all because it's this that is going to define you and determine whether or not you're happy when you turn 75. Simple as that.
TONY JONES: Let me just through this...
CHARLIE PICKERING: And don't look to the internet for approval of your appearance for God's sake. Just had to throw that in.
TONY JONES: Bill Shorten, growing old disgracefully, the Labor way. I mean are you actually looking forward to looking older because then you'll look more like a prime minister?
BILL SHORTEN: Listen, the serious issue is - I think I've had a bit of a greater understanding of all these issues now I've got daughters and I can't believe the pressure that young girls have on them to sort of fit in with their shape, their body shape. I've got a beautiful young daughter and I can't believe the pressure society and some of the popular media is putting on them. What I do like about this issue is it's relatively - it's not a left wing or a right wing issue. I agree with what everyone has said on this panel so far. Doesn't matter if you want to have Botox, if you don't want to have Botox, you're beautiful anyway. If you want to have cosmetic surgery or don't, that's fine. The only other thing I would say to add to this discussion is that it does remind me though the importance of not judging people by how they look and I'm going to put a plug in to a particular cause, people with disabilities. There's no doubt in my mind that people with disabilities, when they apply for jobs in Australia, suffer from unconscious bias. I don't think Australians, by and large, are bad. They're good people. But sometimes if you're not used to working with someone who is in a wheelchair, if you're not used to working with someone with a range of impairments, we can't get beyond looking at that person. So if we think that the beauty idea is important I think we could all do something positive by saying who with disabilities can we engage?
TONY JONES: Okay. Let's go back to some - thank you. We're running out of time. I don't want to cut your clapping off. But you're watching Q&A, where you ask the questions. Let's go to some serious topics again. We've two got video questions on the same topic, one from Victoria and one from Queensland. Let's see them both.
Eliza Thornton asked: Pamela- It's well known that you've undergone medical procedures to "modify" your body but people were created to age, so why defy the natural process of the human body? Instead of encouraging people to change who they are, shouldn't we be encouraging people to be happy with themselves and their appearance?
What do you think?