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.