Newton began acting at Ivanhoe Grammar School appearing in school plays and studying Drama and Media as an elective. After completing his HSC at Eltham College in 1984, he started working at the Oxford Children's Theatre before scoring notable guest roles in various television shows and theater productions during the 1980s. His first major television break came as Bartholomew Thomas Purvis in the short-lived Channel 9 series Family and Friends from 1989 to 1990. He achieved notice playing a wayward street kid turned Christian social worker in the ABC series GP, then moved on to his most well-known television role as Bobby Simpson's husband, Greg Marshall in Home and Away. He focused on theatre work both in Australia and overseas for much of the later 1990s and early 2000s. In 1983 Newton worked on a documentary about Industrial Deafness with the Hawthorn Institute in Melbourne playing the son of a man suffering from hearing loss. The documentary won several health education awards at the time and led to him securing his first television role in the award-winning series The Flying Doctors.
His numerous television and film credits include; The Flying Doctors, Witchcraft, The Fast Lane, Prime Time, Fatal Bond, Pacific Drive, All Saints, Farscape, Cops LAC, Comedy Inc, The Crop, My Brother Tom, Crash Palace, Rafferty's Rules, Win, Lose or Draw, Celebrity Squares, The Politically Incorrect Parenting Show and others.
Personal life
He currently lives on his rural property northwest of Sydney New South Wales with his partner of 24 years, Dressage rider and trainer, Lucas Hurps. He is still active in the industry, as of 2017 appearing in numerous TV commercials, short films, and television series such as Bondi Rescue. He has also worked extensively in advertising. Newton has been outspoken about LGBTQ rights and representation in film and television in recent years. He spoke candidly on The Morning Show on 7 in September 2019 about his time as a gay actor in the 1990s and how he had been told by producers to keep quiet about his sexuality during his time on Home and Away.
