John Newman (Australian politician)
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John Paul Newman (December 8, 1946 - September 5, 1994) was a member of the New South Wales state parliament and Member for the seat of Cabramatta. He was the first politician to be assassinated in Australia.[1]
Born as John Naumenko to Austrian and Croatian parents, who settled in Cabramatta when he was a small child. He was educated at Cabramatta Primary School and Liverpool High School. He went on to work at Borg Warner in Fairfield.
In March 1972 he changed his surname by deed poll to Newman. He had a long history of involvement with the labor movement and with the Australian 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 programs.
Newman was elected an alderman on Fairfield 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 February 1, 1986.[2] Since the 1970s, Cabramatta has been a centre for immigrants and refugees from Asian backgrounds, particularly Vietnam, China, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand and Korea. For many years Newman had been waging a campaign to break up the Asian crime gangs and corruption that had plagued the area.
He had been the target of numerous death threats from such gangs but did not seek police protection. During the night of September 5, 1994 while outside his Woods Avenue home, he was shot and killed. His fiancée, Lucy Wang, was with him at the time but saw little of what happened because of the swiftness of the murder.
A local club owner, Phuong 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. Two of Ngo's alleged associates were acquitted. In 2003, an appeal by Ngo against the conviction failed.
A local swimming pool was named after him by the Fairfield City Council.
[edit] Notes
- ^ However, Thomas John Ley, member for Hurstville and St George probably murdered his political opponents, Fred McDonald in 1925 and Hyman Goldstein, member for Coogee, in 1928.
- ^ Mr John Paul Newman (1946 - 1994). Members of Parliament. Parliament of New South Wales. Retrieved on 2007-05-08.
[edit] See also
- Wang, Lucy. Blood Price: The Moving Story of the Fiancee of Murdered MP, John Newman (1996)
