Tim Read

Read first had a melanoma removed from his leg about seven years before his final illness. In 2025 scans after a swollen leg showed cancer had spread. In January 2026 he announced he would not contest the November state election and spent his remaining months opposing the Allan government's move to close VicHealth, arguing sun-safety messaging pioneered by the foundation might have reduced his own risk had it been stronger when he was younger. He died on 19 September 2026, aged 64, surrounded by family. No by-election was required because Victoria was already due to vote on 28 November.

Read was born in Melbourne in 1962 and studied medicine at the University of Melbourne, graduating with an MBBS. He worked as a GP in inner-city and suburban community health centres before specialising in sexual health. From 1998 he was medical coordinator of the HIV clinic at the Melbourne Sexual Health Centre and from 2005 a sessional sexual health physician at the Royal Melbourne Hospital. After a Postgraduate Diploma of Epidemiology in 2007 he completed his PhD in 2014 on HPV epidemiology, anal cancer detection and HIV control, later publishing more than 60 peer-reviewed papers and holding an NHMRC early career fellowship at Monash University.

As a young medical student Read took part in BUGA-UP actions against tobacco billboard advertising. He first ran for the Greens in the overlapping federal seat of Wills in 2013 and for Brunswick at the 2014 Victorian election, then won Brunswick in 2018. It was the first time the seat had returned a non-Labor-aligned MP. In his inaugural speech he named heatwaves and climate change, drugs and crime policy, and diabetes as Victoria's biggest public health challenges.

As Greens spokesperson for Health, Justice, Integrity and Science, Read drafted bills on pill-testing, bail reform, raising the age of criminal responsibility and strengthening IBAC. From March 2023 he chaired the Integrity and Oversight Committee after the Andrews government agreed to a non-government chair. During COVID-19 he was the only doctor in the Victorian Parliament and pressed for mask campaigns, HEPA filter grants and free public transport masks. He also advocated for blood donation rule changes for gay men and for health-based responses to public drunkenness.

In May 2022, noting rising hospitalisations, Read accused the government of sleepwalking towards a health crisis and called for a winter campaign on masks, indoor air quality and vaccination. Premier Daniel Andrews initially dismissed the advice as politics, but in July announced a Stay Well for Winter campaign covering similar ground, and later free masks on public transport. Read also criticised militarised policing of anti-lockdown protests while supporting science-backed public health measures.

Victorian Greens leader Ellen Sandell described Read as a brilliant local MP, doctor and scientist, and as the kindest, funniest and most fundamentally decent of people, rare for combining conviction, integrity, wit and humility. Premier Ben Carroll recalled a recent conversation about integrity reform and called his contributions intelligent and humane. Opposition Leader Jess Wilson said he was a man of conviction and an honest broker. Colleagues remembered him as a doctor who never stopped practising public health after he became a politician. He is survived by his wife Angela and children Louisa and Martin.