Breast cancer and chemotherapy have not quenched Giulia Jones’s determination to be of service to others. The former Canberra Liberals MLA, now CEO of Painaustralia, had her head shaved this morning at Cataldo’s Salon in Civic. While her treatment was making her lose her hair, she turned it to good account to raise money and awareness for young women with cancer or chronic pain, which are often seen as older persons’ conditions.

“I would never have chosen this, but sometimes in life you don’t get to choose,” Mrs Jones said. “We all have to ask the question of ourselves: what are we going to do with each day of our lives? And how are we going to make a difference? I was really raised to try to do something with my life.”

Having her head shaved means no more waking up to find her hair on her pillow, Mrs Jones joked.

“It’s a relief; it actually feels like a relief,” she said of her new look. “I’m kind of amazed I look okay without hair, as it turns out.”

Mrs Jones said she could not wait to see her children’s reaction. Her five-year-old daughter Liliana, who perched on her knee while she was being shaved, has already told her she looks like a boy with lipstick. But Liliana still gave her “100 thumbs up”!

“I said to my [elder] daughter this morning: ‘Do I look like a mess?’ She said: ‘Yeah, but it’s marketable, mum, so go with it!’ I’m actually really happy to look less like a mess, and my big boys will absolutely laugh their heads off, because for years I ribbed them about shaving their heads too short. I would say: ‘Don’t do that; that’s not a good look. People would judge you.’ Anyway, that’s going to be my joy now.”

Mrs Jones hopes to raise $30,000 for So Brave, Australia’s young women’s breast cancer charity, which is designing a better blood screening test; and for Painaustralia, the peak body for people with chronic pain, which is advocating for doctors to treat them more seriously.

“This has made a difference to some women who are thinking about getting a test to go and get a test,” she said. “If it’s earlier, you won’t have to go through as much. And for those who are going through it, I see you, I really see you, and I know what you’re going through. It’s hard, but the whole community is behind you. I’m feeling that very much now too.”

As of this morning, Mrs Jones has raised $20,000, and the fundraiser is still open.

“Hopefully, the money we’ve raised will do something really good for younger women with chronic pain and with cancer. They are not a very visible group in our community,” she said. “One in five people live with chronic pain in Australia. The majority of those are women, and they just try to struggle on every day. So I want to highlight their lives and have them seen as well.

“While people with cancer are talked about now, which is a huge improvement in the last 20 years, and people with mental health are talked about, people with chronic pain are not talked about. So that’s another huge social change we need to see in this country, and I think we will. Today’s just a little step in that direction.”

Mrs Jones, who left the Legislative Assembly last year due to family and health reasons, was diagnosed with breast cancer earlier this year.

“My chemo is really intense, and I’m sick for a week afterwards. It starts again on Thursday. So we’ve planned this for a good day, and then I’ll just disappear into my family and my home for a week, and walk up into the hills above my house … I’ll go and touch some trees, and get in touch with nature, literally! And then I’ll emerge each time and I’ll get ready for the next one.

“I’m not the only person in Canberra going through all this. There are many people who sit in the chairs of the chemo units, and they are all so brave to just keep on doing that, to be here for their families, to be here for the work they have to do on this Earth.”

Many of Mrs Jones’s former colleagues from the Canberra Liberals were there to offer their encouragement.

“It’s very special that my co-workers from the Assembly have come to support me,” Mrs Jones said. “We’ve been through a lot of rough stuff together, and I would rather have nobody else by my side than some members of the party. We spend our life sticking up for stuff that we think is important, and sometimes no-one says thank you. I’m now doing work that’s in the public domain that’s seen as very positive. It’s harder when you’re in opposition. So, I just thank everybody so much for coming along.”