Tim Mathieson should not be confused with Tim Matheson.
| Tim Mathieson | |
| Office: | Partner of the Prime Minister of Australia |
| Term Label: | In role |
| Term Start: | 24 June 2010 |
| Term End: | 27 June 2013 |
| Successor: | Thérèse Rein |
| Birth Name: | Timothy Raymond Mathieson |
| Birth Place: | Shepparton, Victoria, Australia |
| Partner: | Julia Gillard (2006–2021) |
| Children: | 3 |
| Education: | Shepparton High School |
| Occupation: | Hairdresser |
Timothy Raymond Mathieson (born 1957) is an Australian hairdresser and the former domestic partner of Julia Gillard, the Prime Minister of Australia from 2010 to 2013.[1] Mathieson entered the public spotlight when he became Gillard's partner in 2006 while she was deputy leader of the Australian Labor Party.[2] [3] His relationship with Gillard ended in 2021.[4]
Mathieson was born and raised in Shepparton, Victoria. After a hairdressing apprenticeship in suburban Melbourne, he first operated a Shepparton hair salon, then another on the Gold Coast, Queensland. For much of the 1990s, Mathieson lived and worked in San Francisco in the United States.[5]
Mathieson returned to Australia in 2004, worked for one year as a hairdresser at Heading Out salon in Melbourne, where he met long-standing salon client, politician Julia Gillard. They began dating in March 2006.[1] With financial support from his father and brother, Mathieson established Tim Mathieson Hair in Shepparton but moved back to Melbourne later in 2006[6] as a sales representative for a hair products company.[5] From January to March 2010, Mathieson focused on the sale of high-rise apartments in Melbourne to international buyers on behalf of a local real estate agency.[3] [7]
Once Gillard became prime minister in June 2010, Mathieson supported her by assuming an unpaid behind-the-scenes role.[8]
In November 2008, Minister for Health and Ageing Nicola Roxon appointed Mathieson as one of the government's unpaid men's health ambassadors.[2] He later became an ambassador for Kidney Health Australia,[9] a patron of the Australian Men's Shed Association[10] and involved with the Indigenous Diabetes Association in Alice Springs[3] and Beyond Blue mental health group.[11] In December 2010, Mathieson was appointed patron of the National Portrait Gallery.[12]
In January 2013, Mathieson attracted media attention for a joke he made while advocating for prostate examinations, advising men to seek out "a small Asian female doctor" when receiving a rectal prostate exam. After commentators considered his remark inappropriate and in poor taste, he apologised.[13]
While in his late teens during the 1970s, Mathieson fathered a daughter with his girlfriend Pam Child.[14] [15] In 1987, Mathieson married Diane Stark; they had a son and a daughter together[16] and divorced in 2003.[17] In March 2006, Mathieson started dating Julia Gillard. When asked in 2010 about formal marriage to Gillard, he said that they had not discussed it at that stage.[18] Mathieson's relationship with Gillard ended in 2021.[19]
In July 2023, Mathieson pleaded guilty to a charge of sexual assault after non-consensually sucking the nipple of a sleeping woman and "latching onto her breast when she tried to fend him off" in March 2022.[20] [4] Mathieson was convicted in October 2023 and fined $7000.[4]