Gartrell was born in 1970 in Orange, New South Wales. He was raised by his parents, David and Carolyn Gartrell, on an orchard. His parents fostered a number of children in addition to Tim as well as his brother Brett and sister Katrina. Gartrell notes the impact of living with foster children as a teenager as significant on his politics. In 1987, Gartrell and his school's team won the state debating championships. After finishing school, he moved to Sydney to study in 1989.
Career
Gartrell started his career as an advocate and researcher in the Australian union movement, while studying a Bachelor of Arts part-time at the University of NSW. Gartrell then worked as an adviser for Keating government ministers, Frank Walker and Jeannette McHugh. He then worked in the Beazley Federal Opposition for Anthony Albanese. Following this work, he worked as the assistant to the mayor of the South Sydney Council. He joined the staff of the Australian Labor Party National Secretariat in 1998 serving as Assistant National Secretary of the Australian Labor Party from April 2000. He was elected unopposed as National Secretary on 2 September 2003. Gartrell's career followed the fortunes of the ALP, with his term as National Secretary beginning on the eve of the 2004 election campaign which saw the Party beaten under then leader Mark Latham. Gartrell then pursued reform of the campaigning structures of the Party, enabling Labor to effectively campaign under the "New Leadership" slogan with Kevin Rudd. Gartrell recognised this in his resignation media release stating: "I'm particularly grateful for the support I received from the National Executive after the 2004 federal election defeat and the privilege of being the ALP Campaign Director for the 2007 Federal Election." Gartrell is recognised as one of the driving forces behind Labor's successful 2007 election campaign, which saw the Party return to power after more than 11 years in Opposition. Through a creative use of new campaign techniques and advertising, Labor's campaign was seen to be superior to the Liberal Party campaign and won a series of media awards. As a key member of Labor's Political Strategy Group, Gartrell worked closely with Kevin Rudd from his ascension to the Labor leadership, through to Rudd's election as Prime Minister. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd described Gartrell's leadership skills as "superb" and stated "is ability, hard work, judgment and campaign leadership skills are first class". Gartrell announced his resignation from the position on 30 September 2008 to become CEO of market research firm Auspoll which is part of the larger Photon group of media companies. He left that post in 2010 to become CEO of Indigenous employment advocacy charity . In 2012, Gartrell was recruited by Reconciliation Australia to lead the Recognise campaign team. Gartrell then worked on the Recognise campaign, which advocated for constitutional recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Shortly after the announcement of the Australian Marriage Law Postal Survey, Gartrell was appointed Campaign Director by the 'yes' side in favour of marriage equality. He led the campaign to a resounding success, with 61.6% of Australians voting in favour of marriage equality, representing a higher vote than any two-party preferred electoral vote in Australian history. Gartrell is served as Vice-President of the Australian Labor Party before being appointed as the Chief of Staff to Anthony Albanese in June 2019.
