Tilé and Olly Meets: Avelina Tarrago

In this episode, we sit down with Avelina Tarrago, one of two female First Nation's barristers in Queensland (and one of six female First Nation's barristers in Australia) at the time of writing this profile. Avelina shares beautifully about the impact her mum, and her First Nation's fighting spirit, has had on her career and desire to advocate and support First Nations and human rights causes.

Avelina has held senior roles in various organisations, including senior legal officer for the Office of the Health Ombudsman Queensland and counsel assisting in the Coroners Court of Queensland. She has been a Federal prosecutor with the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions and has also worked for the Australian Securities and Investment Commission and as a sessional lecturer at QUT for the Legal Practice Course on the topic of Cross-Cultural Communication.

In 2014 she was selected as an Indigenous Fellow by the Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights to undertake a two-month fellowship in Geneva.

Avelina was the President of the Indigenous Lawyers Association of Queensland from 2018-2022. She continues to mentor and support early career and aspiring First Nations lawyers, mirroring and paying forward the mentorship she received in her early career. She shares eloquently with us her ideas on the ways that the legal profession can improve action towards improving diversity and inclusion within the profession.

In 2020, Avelina was appointed as a part-time Legal Member of the Mental Health Review Tribunal and in 2023 she was appointed to the Legal Aid Queensland board.

During our conversation, Avelina references the work of American educator, Jane Elliott, and her book "A collar in my pocket: The blue eyes and brown eyes experiment". She also references the autobiography of Mariah Carey titled "The Meaning of Mariah Carey".

We are excited to see where the future takes Avelina. We hope you enjoy this conversation as much as we did.