senator Tim Ayres

Timothy Ayres is a member of the Australian Labor Party, a trade unionist, and an Australian politician who was elected as a Senator for New South Wales at the 2019 federal election. He was born in Sydney on 18 December 1973 and raised on a farm near Lismore, New South Wales. Ayres completed his schooling at Glen Innes High School before studying industrial relations at the University of Sydney.

Ayres worked as a union organizer in the Riverina until 2000, after which he moved to Sydney. He was elected state secretary of the Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union (AMWU) in 2010. In July 2017, Ayres won preselection for the ALP Senate ticket in New South Wales, replacing retiring Senator Doug Cameron. He defeated former federal MP Chris Haviland by a substantial margin in a ballot of Labor Left factional delegates. Ayres was elected to the Senate at the 2019 federal election, running in second place on the ALP ticket in New South Wales.

Ayres made his first speech to parliament on 30 July 2019, in which he criticized the government and stated that “a cruel pea-heart beats inside the chest of this mean-spirited government”. Following the ALP’s victory at the 2022 federal election, Ayres was appointed as the assistant trade minister in the Albanese government.