and the power that each and everyone of us has to be agents for change.

What is a ripple?

Well, I'd like to think of a ripple as much more than the effect

that is produced by throwing a stone into water.

I see a ripple as an act, a situation, a sentiment, or an event

that has far reaching consequences,

far, far beyond its immediate location in space an time.

I see it as the concept

that refers to every action having a reaction, or consequence.

This concept is used often in sociology,

in economics, and in many other fields

to refer to an occurrence, a behavior, a thing

that can have an effect on many other things,

intended or unintended.

With that in mind, I would like to share with you briefly my story.

I am, like many of you, here today a first-generation Australian.

I am a migrants' kid.

I am the product of an Indian Muslim father

and an Anglo-Saxon Australian mother.

We came to these shores in the late 1970s from India.

And indeed, when arriving as newcomers to this land,

it had all the promise of being the lucky country.

But it was difficult, it was challenging as an outsider to assimilate in what was,

apart from my indigenous brothers and sisters,

a very white Australia in those conservative times.

I remember experiencing firsthand the challenges and the prejudice

my father, a dark-skinned Muslim immigrant

experienced in the 1970s' Australia.

I also remember feeling very powerless and voiceless

at the age of 9,

having been sexually abused by a trusted neighbor and friend.

As a result of these two significant events in my life,

as a young woman, I decided to dedicate my career

to helping others find a voice, to helping others access justice.

To do that, I decided on a career in the law.

I was, however, a very insecure little girl

as a result of these early experiences,

and my maternal grandmother used to tell a story

that at the age 7, I developed an alter ego for myself.

Her name was Caroline Jones. (Laughter)

Caroline was blond-haired, she was blue-eyed, she was a Catholic

- I'm not quite sure why she was a Catholic,

I think it's because most of my mates at school were Catholic -

but most importantly, Caroline ate ham sandwiches for lunch. (Laughter)

Ladies and gentlemen, you don't know how important that was for me,

because I was the only kid at school

that wasn't packed with ham sandwiches in their lunchbox.

No, I was one of those kids that had the smelly curry sandwiches

that I got good at dumping on the way to school.

I guess this story is a reflexion of the fact

that I resented my differences.

I resented being a different race, being a different religion,

having a different name, and even sounding differently

because I came to this country with a British accent.

But having made the decision as the young adult

to dedicate my career and my life to helping others,

I started my career here in Perth as a lawyer.

Don't hold that against me!

But eventually, in the late 1990s, I left Australia for the United Kingdom,

because I had this dream that had become an obsession.

I wanted to practice as an international humanitarian lawyer.

And after leaving for the UK, in a coincidental accident, you might say,

where I was exposed to the British military for the first time

whilst on an expedition to South America,

I decided to commission as a legal officer in the British Army.

As a way, I hoped that I would be able to access places and people

that were suffering in silence for so long.

People who lived in parts of the world

where human rights, equal rights, and justice were foreign concepts.

So I decided on this career in the British Army.

I didn't think when I put my application in

that I would stand a chance.

What on earth would the British Army want

with a foreign, female, Muslim lawyer with absolutely no military exposure?

So I threw the application in and forgot.

That wasn't until seven weeks later when I got the fright of my life

and I got a call from the Head of the Army Legal Services,

asking me to front up for a selection panel.

Amazingly, I was selected to commission,

and I will never forget the day when I found out.

As soon as I put the phone down to the Army,

I rang up my parents here in Perth.

My father answered the phone, and I'll never forget, I was so excited,

I said: "Dad, dad! You'll never guess what!

They've chosen me, I've been commissioned as an officer in the British Army."

And I will never ever forget to this day

my dad's concerning, sensitive, tender words.

In his response he said something like this:

"Rabia, don't be so bloody stupid!"

(Laughter)

For the Indians and Asians in the audience,

you will know that the translation of that is:

"My darling, I'm concerned."

(Laughter)

"Have you thought about this? This seems rather rash." (Laughter)

"Could you take me through your thinking?"

(Laughter)

Following this response, I decided that it was probably a good idea

to take a quick trip home, sit down with my parents,

and explain them face to face

why I had decided to take this seemingly bad and mad decision.

I had five day between finishing off my job as a lawyer in the south of England

and starting my officer military training

at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in England.

So, as a young woman, footloose and fancy-free,

I thought five days, a day there, a day back, three days in Perth -

yeah, can do! (Laughter)

So I decided on this lightning trip.

The day that I was due to board my flight bound for Perth

was the 11th of September, 2001.

A day that I'm sure each and everyone of you

will remember exactly where you were and what you were doing

on that faithful and devastating day.

For me, I was sitting in a London Heathrow Airport departure lounge.

I was looking up at the screen

that usually had departure and arrival information

that had been switched to the news.

I was watching the second tower fall.

And two things struck me in the moments after watching the second tower fall.

The first was this overwhelming feeling in the pit of my stomach

that our world as we knew it

was about to change in ways that we couldn't conceive.

The second was more of an observation.

Because, you see, in my departure lounge

there were a number of flights bound for the Middle East,

therefore there were a number of Islamic, Middle-Eastern people

waiting to board their flights, in traditional Islamic attire.

As I looked at these people, I noticed that they were getting frisked,

they were getting manhandled, and they were getting jeered and abused

by fellow travelers, as well as airport officials.

I thought that that was alarming because this was happening

moments before the words Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda

were even mentioned on the news reports.

But at that point in time, it wasn't personal

because, you see, I had spent my whole life

distancing myself from whence I had come.

I went back home, and by the time I came back four days later to the UK,

I was more resolved than ever that I had to continue

down this unexpected path that I had set.

I felt that I had somehow been guided down this path,

and that this was now my intended journey, come what may.

Three years into my military career,

I received the second most unexpected call of my life;

this time again from my commander.

He advised me that I had been selected to deploy to Iraq

as one of the first legal advisers with the United Kingdom brigade,

on what we called Operation Telic,

and that I was to spend the best part of the year in 2005 in Iraq.

Before I deployed, I had a realization.

I was about to spend a year

in this Islamic, war-torn country as an uninvited guest,

and I was a Muslim woman with a recognizable Muslim name.

I had a responsibility to get back in touch with whence I had come.

So I learned Arabic, and I read about the teachings of the Qur’an.

When I deployed to Iraq, already a square peg in a round hole,

I decided that I was going to do things differently,

that I was going to do my job

with empathy, with respect, and with humanity.

After all, that was what I had dedicated my life to.

And so, when I would meet with my Iraqi colleagues

to help them reestablish law and order in their country,

the country that had been left in a chaos,

in a vacuum of chaos and distress after the overthrowing of Saddam’s regime,

I would start every meeting by speaking a little bit of Arabic.

Poorly, but enough to break the ice.

I would wear a hijab, or a headscarf,

- I wonder what Mr. Abbott would think about that -

(Laughter)

not as a sign of subjugation, but as a mark of respect.

My approach was to ask these people

what they needed, what their priorities were,

and how I could have the honor of helping them,

not to tell them what was required and how they could help me.

I guess by having this different

- what we would call, I'm sure, common sense, respectful approach -

I was able to gain good relationships with my Iraqi colleagues.

So fast forward six months into my deployment,

the 19th of September, 2005, when two of my British Special Forces colleagues

had been kidnapped, detained, and taken to an infamous police compound

called the Al-Jamiat.

The Al-Jamiat was actually the home of a terrorist group

called the Jaish Al-Mahdi.

When we heard news that the two men had been taken to the Al-Jamiat,

we knew that that was not good.

My colleague of equal rank, a chap by the name of Major James Woodham,

was deployed in to conduct a recognizance mission, a recky,

and to see if he could negotiate for their release.

But within a half an hour of James deploying in,

he sent word back that the Iraqis, the terrorists,

the government in Iraq would not speak to him.

The only person that they would negotiate with

was Major Rabia, as they called me,

and I guess that's because by that stage

I had established myself as a person of my word,

a person with some humanity and integrity.

So I was ordered in, despite being a mere legal officer

with no hostage negotiation training and no close hand-to-hand combat.

I was ordered in to lead the negotiations,

and it was clear that despite my misgivings,

I was these two men's only hope.

As we hovered over the compound, I saw a sight that I wasn't prepared for.

Hundreds of Iraqis had gathered around the compound,

and I could hear the crackle of gunfire, as the chopper came in.

We landed nearby,

I jostled my way through the crowd and was ushered into an office

where I immediately began negotiating with the Iraqi government representative.

Eventually, I secured their agreement to go to the cell

so I could see these two man,

because I wanted to ascertain whether they were alive and well,

whether they were who we believed they were.

I wasn't going to let James go,

who had now become the passive observer in this event,

he was my only friend, so he was coming with me, like it or not.

And, ladies and gentlemen, it's about now that I need to confess

that encouraged by this achievement,

encouraged by the fact that it'd been agreed that I could see these men,

adrenaline pumping, blood coursing through my veins,

I am pretty cocky.

We bound through the cell, and I see the two men in the corner,

I ordered that their hoods and their chains be removed,

and in this pumped up state

where I temporarily lost control of my senses,

- I don't know, I thought perhaps I was Lara Croft at the time - (Laughter)

the hoods were removed, and I'll never forget uttering the words

that I will regret till this very day, something like this:

"It's alright, guys!" I said. "I've come to save ya!"