Greens MP Tim Read Remembered For HIV Advocacy Following His Death This Week

Dr Tim Read’s work in HIV research and public health is being remembered following the death of the Victorian Greens MP, aged 64.

The Brunswick representative died after living with metastatic cancer, having announced in January that he would not contest November’s state election.

Before entering parliament, Read worked as a doctor and researcher, completing a PhD while practising in a public HIV and sexual health clinic, ABC News reported.

Tim Read remembered for his legacy of advocacy 

His research examined HIV prevention and treatment, alongside treatments for antibiotic-resistant sexually transmitted infections.

That experience later led to a parliamentary career in which health policy remained central to his work.

In the Victorian Greens’ tribute, party leader Ellen Sandell remembered Read as “the kindest, funniest and most fundamentally decent of people”.

She credited his early campaigning with helping advance reforms including pill testing, tobacco licensing and the abolition of public drunkenness laws.

Sandell highlighted his advocacy for allowing gay men to donate blood and a statewide plan addressing HIV transmission and congenital syphilis.

She described his qualities as “conviction, integrity, wit and genuine humility”, while also recognising his work to strengthen scrutiny of government.

“Tim’s personal integrity was unmatched,” Sandell wrote.

The tribute credited Read with pushing measures around ministerial diary disclosure, electoral reform and an independent parliamentary integrity commissioner. It also recognised his leadership of an inquiry into strengthening Victoria’s anti-corruption watchdog.

Read represented Brunswick from 2018, but his public health activism began decades earlier, including campaigning against tobacco advertising.

Even after his cancer diagnosis, he continued fighting the planned closure of VicHealth. The Greens said he wanted to protect other families from losing someone to preventable disease.

“We need to be strengthening health promotion, not weakening it,” Read told the ABC in January, according to its obituary.

Victorian Premier Ben Carroll praised Read’s contribution to debate, while Opposition Leader Jess Wilson described him as “an honest broker”, the ABC reported.

“Politics is hope in motion,” Read previously said of his medical and political lives

The Greens extended their condolences to his wife Angela, children Louisa and Martin, and invited the community to share memories through their tribute page.