Following his elimination from the 2004 series of Australian Idol, Daniel O'Connor was asked to join the cast of Neighbours as Ned Parker.

O'Connor had not considered acting and thought the offer to meet with casting director, Jan Russ was "ridiculous".

[1] In February 2008, it was announced that O'Connor was to leave Neighbours that year, along with co-stars David Hoflin (Oliver Barnes), Jesse Rosenfeld (Marco Silvani) and Sweeney Young (Riley Parker).

Ned quickly developed a crush on Isabelle Hoyland (Natalie Bassingthwaighte) and became friends with Elle Robinson (Pippa Black).

Ned teams up with Karl Kennedy (Alan Fletcher) to form a children's band called "Oodles 'O' Noodles".

They later split when Ned meets Justine Spensley (Alexis Porter) and she forces Karl to quit the group.

Ned then grew close to Katya Kinski (Dichen Lachman), and a jealous Carmella unsuccessfully tried to win him back.

Ned's high school girlfriend, Kirsten Gannon (Nikola Dubois) appears at his doorstep and informs him that he has an eight-year-old son, Mickey (Fletcher O'Leary).

Ned takes Kirsten and Mickey to Oakey to meet the family and he brings his father, Jim (Roger Oakley) back to Ramsay Street.

In a feature specially dedicated to Ned called "Clearing out the dead wood", Deller expressed her delight that the character was leaving Neighbours.

[6] She went on to say "Whilst Dan O'Connor's acting has been somewhat short of stellar, he can't take the sole blame for Ned's failure at becoming a character viewers took to their hearts.

[6] She said "The only time he almost became likeable was when his son Mickey arrived, but seeing as the kid was only tolerable in scenes with Lou and Harold, that didn’t really work, either.

As well as constantly showing off his buff bod, he also discovered he had a secret son with an ex-high school flame and got caught up in a love triangle with Katya Kinski and Carmella Cammeniti.