Tim Ayres

Timothy Ayres (born 18 December 1973) is an Australian politician and trade unionist who was elected as a Senator for New South Wales at the 2019 federal election. He is a member of the Australian Labor Party and was previously a trade union official with the Australian Manufacturing Workers' Union (AMWU). He has served as the Minister for Industry and Innovation and Minister for Science in the Second Albanese ministry since 13 May 2025. He was raised on a farm near Lismore, New South Wales. He completed his schooling at Glen Innes High School, before going on to study industrial relations at the University of Sydney. Ayres has at least one Canadian grandparent, causing him to briefly become a Canadian citizen when that nation changed its laws to extend citizenship by descent. Ayres renounced Canadian citizenship immediately, and the situation was described by Anne Twomey as an "unusual case of a person being validly elected, but then, against their will, having foreign citizenship conferred upon them", and it did not affect Ayres's eligibility to sit in Parliament.

Ayres was elected to the Senate at the 2019 federal election, running in second place on the ALP ticket in New South Wales. He made his first speech to parliament on 30 July 2019, in which he offered that "a cruel pea-heart beats inside the chest of this mean-spirited government".

In 2022, following the ALP's victory at the 2022 federal election, Ayres was appointed assistant trade minister in the Albanese government. Ayres' promotion was seen as recognition of his success in undertaking work as the Assistant Minister for Manufacturing and Labor's Made in Australia agenda.