Boehringer, Gill --- "Media: Who killed John Newman?" [2004] AltLawJl 40; (2004) 29(3) Alternative Law Journal 145

• MEDIA
• Who killed John Newman?

MEDIA
Who killed John Newman?

GILL H BOEHRINGER^[*]

looks beyond the media portrayal of Phuong Ngo and Quang Dao.

Recently I had dinner with a group of Vietnamese community leaders, during which we spoke about the case of Phuong Ngo, the man the media have reported as the person convicted of 'Australia's first political assassination', the killing of John Newman the state member for Cabramatta. Some of those present at the dinner had known Ngo for many years. They do not accept that the trial was fair. They believe the media assisted in the frame-up of a member of their community. They also believe that if Ngo was not Vietnamese he would not be in jail. In their view, the Australian Vietnamese community has been a soft target for police, with the help of the media. They assert that this has resulted in a general fear in their community preventing the raising of questions about Injustice in the criminal process.

To these folks, Ngo is a highly respected, cultured man, a devout Christian (and Buddhist), and someone who has given great service to the people of their area. Far from being a Godfather as portrayed in the press, he is known to locals including many non-Vietnamese who work in the area and continue to support him as a socially concerned and responsible member of the community.

This is a man unrecognisable in mainstream media characterisations, a man described as 'the Cabramatta overlord' and mastermind of the murder of his alleged political rival John Newman. Descriptions of Phuong Ngo's community service were subsumed by stories of Ngo as the founder of the Mekong Club, a place where Vietnamese gang members, ex-prisoners and unemployed youth gathered. It was such stories that featured in the mainstream media during the three years in wh1ch Ngo was described 1n reports of the coroner's inquest. committal proceedings and three trials. By the end of this Ngo had been constructed as a very plausible villain.

Yet, while Ngo was jailed for life, John Newman's killer remains free. Despite the story told by the press, which referred to Ngo as the 'convicted political assassin' no killer was in fact convicted.

Although convicted of murder by joint enterprise, or common purpose, Ngo did not shoot Newman, and the others charged with the murder by the joint enterprise, were acquitted. Neither the media nor the police have any apparent interest in pursuing the matter. The killer remains a threat and yet the community has been left unprotected while the media trumpets triumph over crime.

In this context many people, including my dinner companions, are not convinced that Ngo was connected with the crime in any way. They believe this is another case of wrongful conviction.

Newman was not a popular figure in a number of quarters in the tension filled suburbs of his constituency. He was a larger than life public figure who had alienated many. He campaigned hard against 'Asian gangs' and 'drug-related crime'. There are also those who say that 'he knew too much' about illegal police involvement with drugs. It seems clear that he received death threats. A shot was fired through his office window. His car was splattered with paint three times by unidentified attackers. On the occasion of the last such incident. police provided surveillance, including cameras, at his home (where he would later be murdered). Th1s surveillance was lifted not long before the killing.

It took three trials to convict Ngo. Trials that cannot be separated from the period in which they were held, coming as they did, in the wake of ten years of negative public1ty about the Vietnamese in Cabramatta, alternatively called 'Little Saigon' or the 'heroin capital of Australia'. For years the media avidly reported the problems the police had in maintaining 'law and order' in the area. By the time of his third trial the media had created a moral pan1c and Phuong Ngo had become a 'folk dev11'.

The story told by the media becomes even more questionable when one compares the radically different stories told during the three trials. In the first murder trial, T was the alleged shooter in the front seat of the car driven by Quang Dao. This trial was aborted by the prosecution. Then, after 18 months in jail and pressure from police and the Crime Commission, T 'turned' and testified against Ngo and Dao (in return for which he was given immunity against prosecution). For the second trial T was now in the back seat. only along for the ride. The second trial ended in a hung jury. The sole juror for acquittal later made public accusations of racism and intimidation by a group in the jury room who wished to convict. At the third trial T was still just along for the ride in the back seat of the murder car: someone else, David Dinh, was holding the gun. However, despite Ts apparent eyewitness testimony, and that of N, another given immunity for his testimony, Dinh and Dao were found not guilty.

Ngo alone was convicted of a joint enterprise to murder, without the conviction of anyone else in the enterprise, including the person who shot John Newman.

The stories which were not told during this trial are many. Contrary to the impression given by the media, the Mekong Club was a place of employment and refuge for many young Vietnamese who found it difficult to survive the rigours and conflicts of growing up, often without family support, in south-west Sydney. Indeed, in his judgment sentencing Phuong Ngo to life imprisonment, Dunford J noted:

There was a large amount of evidence on sentence concerning the prisoner's work for the community and I am satisfied that he worked very hard ... building bridges between Asian and other groups ... and assisting constituents with their problems ... He was instrumental in the formation of the Mekong Club which enabled Asian people ... to have their own club and support their ethn1c community, he fostered an Asian language and culture school at weekends .... He was also instrumental ... in having the Fairfeld Drug Intervention Centre established.

The media has continued its misrepresentations, conducting a vituperative campaign which resulted in 'exposing' Ngo's 'jailhouse wok banquets' and his alleged continuing corrupt hold over Fairfield Local Council. The other stories which might be told are that Phuong was instrumental in organising functions in jail, approved by the appropriate authorities, to mark the Lunar Year. These were attended by friends from the Vietnamese community, and other notables. The purpose was cultural, spiritual and communal, and is a continuation of Ngo's multicultural bridge-building. Such events provided an opportunity for Asian Australians, as well as other prisoners, to celebrate an important occasion in Asian culture. Again, to quote Dunford J: 'He has also, with the authorities' approval, organised cultural and festival activities within the gaol.'

As for the allegations of his corrupt hold over Fairfield councillors, this media canard was nailed for the fraud that it was by an independent inquiry, about which the media reported noticeably little.

At dinner I met Quang Dao, a warm, gentle man with an engaging manner. He is a local community officer working on social problems in the area. Married and a father of four, he is the son of a doctor and is a former university student. I found it difficult to see the desperado who drove the murder car. Dao seemed genuine in maintaining his innocence and that of Ngo. We also spoke of another case in which the two were defendants and were found not guilty. About this case the media has been almost totally silent. Dao and Ngo were charged with demanding money with menaces and the malicious wounding of a local Vietnamese businessman (by stabbing his hand). Not only were the two defendants found not guilty by the jury, the key witnesses against them were found by the judge to be unbelievable. Who were these witnesses? Yes -T, and N who had been the witnesses privy to the joint enterprise in the murder trials. Both T and N also scored immunity for their testimony in this 'standover' trial.

These charges were laid after the second murder trial ended in a hung jury. The charges were perhaps a tactic, a way of subverting any defence attempt to portray the accused as reputable people in the third trial. Perhaps some dreamer thought they could 'turn' Dao against Ngo.

Unfortunately for Ngo, his application for leave to appeal was recently rejected by the High Court. Nevertheless, at a time when convicted rapists are having appeals upheld because of media treatment of their cases, the media treatment of Ngo's conviction should be a source of renewed interest and inquiry. Supporters of Ngo, in seeking a review of his case, will certainly point to pervasive and pernicious background media coverage.

As the noted criminologist Leslie Wilkins said years ago, the further away from the crime, the more reliant we are on the mainstream media. Taking that point, I looked at some of the local, Vietnamese language coverage of the case in which Ngo and Dao were acquitted. In a series of feature articles, the Saigon Times noted on 18 September 2003:

The Australian media listened to the opening address by the prosecutor and the evidence of the Crown Witness(es) for two days and then left. This meant that only one side of the case was reported.

Indeed.

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^[*] GILL H BOEHRINGER teaches law in the Department of Public Law at Macquarie University.

© 2004 Gill H Boehringer

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