Bennelong by-election: Labor’s Kristina Keneally makes Medicare Eastwood promise
LABOR has promised to reopen a Medicare office at Eastwood if it wins government, in a bid to woo voters in the Bennelong by-election.
Northern District Times
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LABOR has promised to reopen a Medicare office at Eastwood if it wins government, in a bid to woo voters in the Bennelong by-election.
Labor candidate Kristina Keneally was joined by Opposition Leader Bill Shorten at Eastwood today and made the promise.
“If Labor is elected at a general election, we will reopen the Medicare office here at Eastwood to serve the people of this community, and serve people right across Bennelong,” she said.
The Medicare office at Eastwood Shopping Centre closed in 2015.
It was combined with Centrelink at the Ryde Service Centre in Devlin St as a ‘one-stop-shop’.
Labor was in government in 2013 when the decision was taken to close a number of Medicare offices, including the Eastwood one.
However Labor says the closure took place while the Liberals were governing.
Mr Shorten said the reopening of the Medicare office was the first thing Ms Keneally raised with him after she decided to stand for the December 16 by-election.
Meanwhile, Liberal candidate John Alexander has been forced to apologise after the emergence of a video in which he makes a crude joke about rape.
Mr Alexander was filmed at a Brisbane pub in 1995 telling two jokes, the first about a Catholic priest using a confessional to find “tramp” women and a second, which included the rape joke.
Mr Alexander — in a statement — said he unreservedly apologised.
“More than 20 years ago I told crude and inappropriate jokes, which were completely unacceptable and I apologise unreservedly,” he said.
“There is no place for jokes about violence against women.”