
Ms Jo Tarnawsky
Chief of Staff, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defence - External Contributor
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Biography
Ms Jo Tarnawsky is the Chief of Staff to the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defence.
Prior to her current appointment, Ms Tarnawsky served as the Deputy Official Secretary to the Governor-General. She has previously worked in various roles for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, and at Parliament House.
Ms Tarnawsky has extensive international experience, serving from 2016-2019 as Australia’s Deputy Ambassador to Italy, Albania, Libya and San Marino and Australia’s Alternate Permanent Representative to the UN’s World Food Programme. She has also worked for the Australian government in Papua New Guinea, Iraq, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Ethiopia, Fiji, Tonga, Trinidad and Tobago, Vietnam and India.
Ms Tarnawsky holds a Masters of Arts from Deakin University, a Bachelor of Laws (Hons) from ANU, and is a graduate of the Centre for Defence and Strategic Studies at the Australian Defence College.