Happy in her own skin

Paula Bennett has always loved her body, both big and small. She reveals to Emma Clifton how her 50kg weight loss hasn’t changed how she feels on the inside, why liking yourself is a powerful, life-changing thing… and why you might even spot her wearing a wig!

- Emma Clifton

It may be still six months until the September election, but Paula Bennett estimates she is already pulling 90 to 100 hour weeks. On the day of her Australian Women’s Weekly cover shoot, we are appointment three in a schedule that starts in the early hours of the morning and finishes late at night, before she’s up at 4.45am the next day to do it all again. In a tightly packed life like this, all you need is one domino to fall over and everything gets out of whack. So it’s Murphy’s Law in action when, on the way to our cover shoot, Paula stopped to get petrol and, along with a group of others, got locked in the petrol station for 20 minutes after the automatic doors stopped working. They did get a free coffee for their trouble though, she jokes, sipping her flat white, so that’s something.

She arrives for the shoot like the energetic whirlwind she always is – Paula has one speed, and that speed is full-on. She’s particularly firing on all cylinders because, for the first time in about 10 years, she allowed herself to create a “politics-free zone” over the summer holidays. What does that entail? Well, in this case, it involved quality time with family, no technology and, on one occasion, a wig. “It became a bit of a family joke,” she laughs. “I didn’t watch the news religiously, I didn’t look at social media much.” Any time anyone mentioned something political, Paula and/or her family would shut it down by calling out “politics-free zone!”(she puts on a faux shrill voice, laughing). At one point, she decided she might extend this to heading out in public.