Robyn Read is a former Australian politician. She was the

Independent Independent or Independents may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups * Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s * Independ ...

member for North Shore in the

New South Wales Legislative Assembly The New South Wales Legislative Assembly is the lower of the two houses of the Parliament of New South Wales, an Australian state. The upper house is the New South Wales Legislative Council. Both the Assembly and Council sit at Parliament Ho ...

from 1988 to 1991. Read was born in

St Leonards St Leonards may refer to: Places Australia *St Leonards, New South Wales **St Leonards railway station *St Leonards, Tasmania, suburb of Launceston *St Leonards, Victoria Canada *St. Leonard's, Newfoundland and Labrador New Zealand * St L ...

, the daughter of Norman Read and Edith Gordon. She was educated in Sydney and received a

Bachelor of Arts Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four year ...

and a Master of Town and Country Planning from the

University of Sydney The University of Sydney (USYD), also known as Sydney University, or informally Sydney Uni, is a public research university located in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in Australia and is one of the country's ...

, 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. In 1988, the

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 A by-election, also known as a special election in the United States and the Philippines, a bye-election in Ireland, a bypoll in India, or a Zimni election (Urdu: ضمنی انتخاب, supplementary election) in Pakistan, is an election used to f ...

as an independent with Mack's endorsement, and easily defeated her nearest rival,

Liberal Liberal or liberalism may refer to: Politics * a supporter of liberalism ** Liberalism by country * an adherent of a Liberal Party * Liberalism (international relations) * Sexually liberal feminism * Social liberalism Arts, entertainment and m ...

candidate

Jillian Skinner Jillian Gell Skinner (born 5 August 1944) is an Australian politician who was the New South Wales Minister for Health in the Baird government. Skinner was a member of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly representing North Shore for the ...

. In the 1991 redistribution, however, the neighbouring seat of

Mosman Mosman is a suburb on the Lower North Shore region of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Mosman is located 8 kilometres north-east of the Sydney central business district and is the administrative centre for the local governm ...

was abolished, and Read was challenged by its Liberal MP,

Phillip Smiles Phillip Murray Smiles (born 25 May 1946) is a former Australian politician. He was a Liberal member of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly, representing Mosman from 1984 to 1991 and North Shore from 1991 to 1993. Early life Smiles was bor ...

and Smiles won narrowly. 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. 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 The National Library of Australia (NLA), formerly the Commonwealth National Library and Commonwealth Parliament Library, is the largest reference library in Australia, responsible under the terms of the ''National Library Act 1960'' for "mainta ...

Trove collection.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Read, Robyn Living people Independent members of the Parliament of New South Wales Members of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly Australian women writers Australian writers Women mystery writers Women members of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly Year of birth missing (living people) North Sydney Council Deputy mayors of places in Australia People educated at Monte Sant'Angelo Mercy College Public servants of New South Wales