`Home of the Cobra' Spawns Assassination

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IT RAINED on Cabramatta when they buried John Newman on Friday. More than 1,000 mourners, led by Paul Keating, the Australian Prime Minister, paid tribute to the MP who last week became the country's first politician to be assassinated.

Gough Whitlam, a former Labor prime minister, read to a congregation containing many politicians from all sides. It was as if they were showing their defiance of a crime that has shaken Australia's image of itself.

Even six days after Mr Newman, 47, was gunned down in a drive-by murder outside his home in Cabramatta, assassination is a word that Australians are still struggling to come to terms with.

Mr Newman himself had …