Phuong Ngo

Newman had been elected to the Fairfield council in 1977 and was known for his campaigns against Asian criminal gangs that were then a serious problem.

At the time the media regularly portrayed Cabramatta as a "centre of criminality" and the heroin capital of Australia.

Newman suspected Ngo took part in criminal dealings due to his involvement with the Mekong Club, which many believed to be laundering money for the Cabramatta gangs.

According to his priest, Ngo had very strong opinions regarding Europeans, believing that they were all "stupid" and racist.

In January 1981, he made his thirteenth attempt, which was successful, and he arrived in Australia via Malaysia as a refugee in 1982.

Ngo rose rapidly in local politics.

On 26 September 1987, he was elected to the Cabramatta Ward of Fairfield City Council, New South Wales, making him the first Vietnamese-born Australian to enter local government; on his election, Ngo expressed to The Sydney Morning Herald: "I think we are welcome here. But we need a mutual understanding. Most people I talked to said we needed a Vietnamese on the council."

The following year he partnered Rodney Adler to set up Asia Press Pty Ltd, which published Dan Viet, a Vietnamese language newspaper.

As a city councillor, Ngo worked to help members of the Vietnamese Australian community and, after arranging for Adler to invest $1 million, led the redevelopment of the local community centre, the Mekong Club.

He was subsequently asked to be the club's president.

From July 1990 to June 1993, Ngo served as a Commissioner of the NSW Ethnic Affairs Commission.

In 1990, he was elected deputy mayor of Fairfield.

In 1990, the local Fairfield Champion newspaper published an article regarding a proposal to add an inscription commemorating the Chinese Communist Revolution to the Pai Lau gate (Freedom Gate) in Cabramatta's Freedom Square.

Ngo, then deputy mayor of Fairfield and an ardent anti-communist, blamed Newman for the proposal and sued the newspaper.

The case was settled out of court.

The following year, Ngo was re-elected to Fairfield City Council at the September 1991 election and stood as an independent for the seat of Cabramatta in the May 1991 state election, which he lost to Labor's John Newman.

After his friend and council ally, Nick Lalich, approached Federal MP Ted Grace for Ngo to join Labor, Grace arranged a meeting with Senator Graham Richardson and Leo McLeay, Federal MP for Watson and Speaker of the House of Representatives.

They decided that if Ngo was promoted to the Legislative Council (MLC), he could be a potential "counter" to the Liberal Party's Asian MLC Helen Sham-Ho.

Ngo was invited to join Labor and run the party's re-activated Canley Vale branch.

This put him in direct competition with Newman, who ran the Canley Heights branch, despite previously agreeing not to challenge Newman for preselection.

According to the 1991 census, 70 percent of Cabramatta's population were immigrants.

Around 25 percent were of Vietnamese descent while another 10 percent were of other Asian origins.

In 1991, Ngo stood as an independent for the seat of Cabramatta and Newman, who was the sitting member, issued a press release questioning Ngo's refugee status.

Ngo received only 11.7% of the vote, a result he blamed on his being Asian.

Following the election, Ngo joined Labor with the help of the Labor Right, led by Grace and his new Canley Vale branch, now directly competing with the Newman's (Labor Left) Canley Heights branch.

Ngo and Newman vied for new members, which led to considerable infighting over branch stacking.

The ALP general secretary, John Della Bosca, arranged a meeting to resolve the dispute, during which Ngo agreed not to challenge Newman for pre-selection in exchange for Newman not challenging the credentials of members who joined Ngo's branch.

At this time Newman was being targeted: his car had been paint bombed three times and he was receiving death threats.

Publicly he blamed the Vietnamese 5T gang, but privately he confided in acquaintances that he believed it was Ngo "and that gang of hooligans" at the Mekong Club.

Phuong Canh Ngo (Ngô Cảnh Phương, ; born 1958) is an Australian former businessman and politician who was convicted of ordering the killing of Australian MP John Newman on 5 September 1994.

Phuong Ngo was born in South Vietnam to wealthy parents and following university became a schoolteacher.

Following the fall of Saigon and the end of the Vietnam War, his family had their assets confiscated.

Ngo made several unsuccessful attempts to flee the country and was jailed several times.

In 1994, Fairfield wanted a sister city.

Ngo advocated a city from Taiwan, which was endorsed by councilors Lalich and Anwar Khoshaba; Newman, in line with official party policy, pushed for a city in China.

A Taiwan relationship was against Australian Federal government policy, as Taiwan was not diplomatically recognised as a nation.

According to former Cabramatta detective Tim Priest, Ngo had received a $117,000 cheque from Jin-Gou Chang of the Taipei Cultural Office in 1994.

Newman learned of the transaction and accused Ngo, Lalich and Khoshaba of accepting funding from the Taiwanese government and stated that they should not be re-elected to the council, a position for which he received considerable support.

The Hsinchu City sister city relationship was accepted despite only 100 Cabramatta citizens having Taiwanese ancestry.

On 1 June, the Labor State Electoral Council condemned Ngo and Lalich, stating that if they continued to breach Labor policy regarding China, they would both be expelled.