Tim Read, the GP who rewrote Victoria's HIV policy, dies at 64

The Brunswick Greens MP spent decades in sexual health research before entering parliament — and his early advocacy became state law.

Told by Claire Lawson · 21 September 2026

Tim Read died on Saturday surrounded by the people he loved, which is about the kindest thing you can say about a death at 64.

The Victorian Greens MP for Brunswick had metastatic cancer — a melanoma removed from his leg six years ago that came back and spread. He announced in January he'd run out of treatment options and would retire at November's election. He didn't make it that far.

Before Read entered parliament he was a general practitioner who specialised in sexual health, completed a doctorate, and published more than 60 articles — most of them on human papillomavirus and HIV treatment and prevention. That work wasn't academic decoration. It became state policy.

Read's early advocacy led directly to Victoria's statewide plan to eradicate congenital syphilis and HIV transmission. It led to the end of the discriminatory ban on gay men donating blood. It led to pill-testing trials, tobacco licensing reform, and the abolition of public drunkenness laws. It led to a statutory ban on solitary confinement in prisons.

Those are not small things. A statewide HIV elimination plan means funded clinics, accessible PrEP, contact tracing that works, and antenatal screening that catches syphilis before it harms a baby. Ending the blood ban means gay men are finally treated as individuals whose sexual behaviour can be assessed like anyone else's, not as a contaminated class. Pill-testing means young people at festivals get their drugs checked instead of dying in a tent because they didn't know what they'd bought.

Read did that work as a doctor and researcher long before he had any political power — and then in 2018 he was elected to Brunswick, ending a 114-year Labor hold on the seat that went back to 1904.

Once in parliament he kept going: he pushed for rent freezes, better bike lanes, an independent Health Promotion Foundation to fight preventable chronic disease, and updates to IBAC's powers to make it "a standing royal commission at half the price." In 2023 he became the first non-government chair of the integrity and oversight committee — a position the Andrews government created specifically so it wouldn't be held by Labor — and led the inquiry that strengthened Victoria's anti-corruption watchdog.

He also introduced the laws, later picked up by government, that force ministers to make their diaries public, end preference whispering and dodgy group voting tickets, and create an independent parliamentary integrity commissioner. Victorian Greens leader Ellen Sandell said his contribution to the state's anti-corruption and integrity laws was "perhaps his biggest achievement."

Premier Ben Carroll spoke to Read earlier this week — a conversation he described as deeply touching. They talked about integrity in public life and the need for reform. "Despite his health challenges, he was positive and optimistic for a better world," Carroll said.

"My bucket list is no longer important to me," Read told parliament in what turned out to be his final words there. "It's more important to me now to see smiles on the faces of those I love."

He is survived by his wife Angela, his children Louisa and Martin, and a state whose public health system and political accountability laws are measurably better because he lived. His family asked that instead of flowers, donations go to Friends of the Earth and the Inner North Community Foundation.