Read was born in St Leonards,the daughter of Norman Read and Edith Gordon. She was educated in Sydney and received a Bachelor of Arts and a Master of Town and Country Planning from the University of Sydney,becoming a journalist and university tutor. Moving into public service,she was Head of the Central Policy Unit in the New South Wales Department of Planning,Commissioner of Water Resources in New South Wales,and Director of the New South Wales Land Co-ordination Unit. Federally she was Executive Director of City Services in Canberra. She sat on North Sydney Municipal Council 1970–77 and 1987–91,and was General Manager of Byron Shire Council.[1]
In 1988,the Independent MP for the state seat of North Shore,Ted Mack,resigned from Parliament to avoid qualifying for a parliamentary pension. Read contested the resulting by-election as an independent with Mack's endorsement,and easily defeated her nearest rival,Liberal candidate Jillian Skinner.[2] In the 1991 redistribution,however,the neighbouring seat of Mosman was abolished,and Read was challenged by its Liberal MP,Phillip Smiles and Smiles won narrowly.[3] Read contested North Shore one more time unsuccessfully in the by-election held in 1994 in which she was defeated in a rematch by her old Liberal rival Jillian Skinner.[4]
A crime novel written by Read,The More Things Change,was published in 1996 by Random House. In the novel the body of a member of parliament is found floating in the pool in parliament house. Set in Sydney,the journalist Kate Corbett investigates the murder,uncovering endemic corruption and vice along the way. The original manuscript is in the National Library of Australia Trove collection.[5][6]
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