Representative Tim Watts Contact information

Timothy Graham Watts is a prominent Australian politician and member of the Australian Labor Party (ALP). Born on June 8, 1982, in Toowoomba, Queensland, Watts is the descendant of John Watts, a member of the first parliament of Queensland who emigrated from England.

Watts received his secondary education at Centenary Heights State High School in Toowoomba before pursuing higher education. He earned a Bachelor of Laws with Honours from Bond University, a Master of Public Policy and Management from Monash University, and a Master of Science in Politics and Communications from the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Watts began his professional career as a solicitor at Mallesons Stephen Jaques from 2003 to 2005. He then served as deputy chief of staff for Senator Stephen Conroy from 2005 to 2009. Following this, he briefly worked as a senior adviser to Victorian Premier John Brumby. In 2009, Telstra recruited him to advise on the company’s relationship with the new National Broadband Network as a corporate relations manager. This appointment was part of a strategy by CEO David Thodey to repair Telstra’s relationship with the federal government, which had deteriorated under his predecessor Sol Trujillo.

In April 2013, Watts won ALP preselection for the Division of Gellibrand, succeeding the retiring incumbent MP Nicola Roxon. He retained Gellibrand for the ALP in the 2013 federal election and has since served on several standing committees. Following the 2019 federal election, he was appointed to the shadow ministry of Anthony Albanese as an assistant shadow minister with the portfolios of communications and cyber security. He announced plans for a national ransomware strategy in February 2021.

Watts is widely known for his strong advocacy for social issues, particularly in preventing and removing family violence across Melbourne’s West and Australia. In response to the murder of Fiona Warzywoda in his electorate in 2014, he launched the bipartisan “Parliamentarians against Family Violence” with Coalition MPs Andrew Broad and Ken Wyatt. In 2015, he introduced a private member’s bill to criminalize the non-consensual sharing of private sexual material alongside fellow Labor MP Terri Butler.

Apart from his legislative work, Watts is an avid supporter of the Western Bulldogs in the Australian Football League and has written extensively on the importance of multiculturalism in modern Australian society. He co-authored Two Futures: Australia at a critical moment with fellow Labor MP Clare O’Neil in 2015 and released another book, The Golden Country: Australia’s Changing Identity, in 2019.

Watts lives in Footscray with his wife and two children. In June 2022, he was appointed as the Assistant Minister for Foreign Affairs in the ministry of Anthony Albanese.