After her husband's death, Zara remarried in 1969 to one of his Liberal Party colleagues, Jeff Bate. She was widowed a second time in 1984, and died in 1989. In a 1988 interview with "The Sydney Morning Herald", Zara stated that her husband Harold had carried on "dozens" of extramarital affairs. In his biography of Holt, Tom Frame wrote: "I have not included the names of women with whom Holt allegedly had a sexual relationship because I was unable to confirm or deny that most of these relationships took place […] by their very nature they were always illicit and Holt was very discreet."