John Newman

John Paul Newman (born Johann Grauenig, formerly Naumenko; 8 December 1946 – 5 September 1994) was an Australian politician who served as a member of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly from 1986 until his assassination in 1994. Newman arrived in Australia in 1950, aged four, and his family settled in Cabramatta in the western suburbs of Sydney. He attended Cabramatta Public School and Liverpool Boys High School.

Political career Newman had a long history of involvement with the labour movement and with the Labor Party, spending much of his working life as a union official. He was a State union organiser with the Federated Clerks' Union from 1970 to 1986. Newman completed post-graduate studies in industrial law at the University of Sydney and undertook a variety of Trade Union Training Authority education programmes. Newman was elected as an alderman of the Fairfield City Council in 1977 and remained on the council for 10 years. He was deputy mayor in 1985–86 and also served as acting mayor in 1986. In December 1979 Newman's pregnant wife, Mary, and five-year-old son, David, were killed in an automobile accident at Bossley Park.

Following a by-election in the seat of Cabramatta, Newman was elected to Legislative Assembly of New South Wales on 1 February 1986. He was easily re-elected at the 1988 and 1991 state elections. Since the 1970s, Cabramatta has been a centre for immigrants and refugees from Asian backgrounds, particularly Vietnam, China, Laos, Cambodia and Thailand. Prior to his assassination, Newman had waged a campaign (by helping to form Task Force Oak) to combat Asian organised crime. His fiancée, Lucy Wang, was with him at the time (helping to put a car cover on his vehicle) but saw little of what happened because of the swiftness of the murder. She reported seeing a hooded man in an army style jacket, who fired four shots, then fled in a waiting car. Ngo who had previously attempted to secure Labor Party pre-selection for the seat of Cabramatta and had run against him as an independent in 1991, was convicted of the killing in 2001.

In 2003, an appeal by Ngo against the conviction failed. A judicial inquiry was launched into the conviction of Phuong Ngo on 6 June 2008, by order of Chief Justice James Spigelman of the Supreme Court of New South Wales. The inquiry was overseen by former and Acting District Court judge, David Patten, and addressed several concerns raised as to the validity of the original conviction. On 17 April 2009 Patten ruled that the original conviction was sound. Following the inquiry, calls were made to have Ngo's name removed from monuments in Cabramatta. Calls for the council to name a landmark in honour of Newman have not proceeded so far, although a swimming pool in Prairiewood bears his name.