Olive Zakharov - Before Politics

Before Politics

Zakharov was born 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.

In 1968, after the last of her children had reached primary school, Zakharov separated from her husband, and later divorced him, though she retained his surname. She proceeded to raise her children alone, and in 1969 began as a student welfare co-ordinator at Montmorency Secondary College in Melbourne. She served as president of her local party branch, and was a delegate to the party's state conference. She was offered a safe Labor seat in the Parliament of Victoria in the 1970s, but declined for family reasons.