Olive Zakharov

Alice Olive Zakharov (; 19 March 1929 – 6 March 1995) was an Australian politician. Zakharov was elected as an Australian Labor Party member of the Australian Senate in 1983.

Former Senator Graham Richardson, a leader of the party's right faction, once stated that Zakharov "works hard on social issues in the chamber, but hides her light under a bushel far too successfully". She was re-elected in 1984, 1987, and 1993, and was in the midst of her final term in the Senate when she was killed in an automobile accident in early 1995.

Before politics

Zakharov was born Alice Olive Hay, in Kew, Melbourne. She studied psychology as part of an arts degree at Melbourne University, where she joined the local branch of the Communist Party of Australia, something which she later discovered had brought her to the attention of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation. She briefly married while at university, but the couple separated in 1949, and she soon moved to Yallourn to live with a new partner, unionist John Zakharov, who she later married and began a family with. As a young woman, she juggled her family commitments with a number of jobs, working as a market research interviewer, clerk, waitress, mail officer, psychiatric nurse, and pathology assistant. She also continued to be politically active, being involved in the local branch of the Australian Labor Party. She soon established herself as a loyal member of the Socialist Left faction and as an advocate for equal rights for women and the rights of the disadvantaged. This early advocacy for progressive causes brought her the second ever Australian Humanist of the Year award in 1984. Due to having won the tenth spot in 1983, Zakharov was forced to face election against the following year, but was once again comfortably returned. Once asked why she had begun a political career so late in life, Zakharov compared herself to marathon runner Cliff Young and stated, "ate runs can be very successful."

Throughout the 1980s, Zakharov remained a loyal member of the party, but made her voice heard on a number of issues. She was the lone voice of dissent when the other five members of the Senate Select Committee on Video Material urged the banning of X-rated videos in 1984. Two years later, Zakharov and Senator Rosemary Crowley opposed legislation against scientific experimentation on human embryos that had been proposed by conservative independent Brian Harradine. The remainder of the select committee set up to evaluate the proposal supported a compromise majority report that severely limited scientific experimentation; in a high-profile dissenting report, Zakharov and Crowley urged that the parents of the embryos have the final say as to how they were used, and were highly critical of the absolute pro-life arguments employed by the majority. While the report was overlooked by the government at the time, it was later largely adopted by the New South Wales Law Reform Commission. Zakharov also remained involved in her local community; she used her political connections to help save her historic neighbourhood in Port Melbourne from demolition, and at one point painted "NOT FOR SALE" on her roof in order to promote the message.

In 1988, Zakharov was the only 1st world politician invited to witness the first destruction of nuclear weapons at a ceremony in the Soviet Union after the signing of a disarmament agreement.

Death

Zakharov was struck by a car on the afternoon of 12 February 1995, while crossing St Kilda Road after leaving the Midsumma Festival. She was in a coma for three weeks, but did not regain consciousness and, having never regained consciousness, Zakharov died on 6 March.

Upon her death, the Senate adjourned early and several red roses, the symbol of the international socialist movement, were placed upon her desk as a mark of respect.

A memorial to her in a park in Bay Street, Port Melbourne was unveiled in March 2002.