Overview
- Tim Read, the Greens member for Brunswick, died on Saturday after a public fight with metastatic cancer, a loss the party and parliamentary colleagues confirmed with statements and tributes.
- As chair of the Integrity and Oversight Committee he drove transparency reforms that made ministers’ diaries public, ended secret preference practices and pushed for an independent parliamentary integrity commissioner while helping strengthen IBAC.
- Read used his final months in parliament to campaign to save VicHealth, arguing that prevention funding reduces long‑term health costs and pointing to the foundation’s role in sun‑safety and other public‑health programs.
- A former GP and sexual‑health researcher with a PhD and more than 60 publications, Read’s early activism with BUGA‑UP and clinical work shaped policy wins including pill‑testing, tobacco licensing, changes to blood‑donation rules, and moves to reduce HIV and congenital syphilis.
- Political leaders across parties paid tribute, the Greens asked for donations to Friends of the Earth and the Inner North Community Foundation in lieu of flowers, and some outlets showed a minor discrepancy in reports of his age at death.