Page 1195 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 4 May 2022
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
From the Guardian, there was this headline: “Biden praises Lockheed workers for making weapons for ‘Ukrainian heroes’”. Let me quote from that Guardian article:
President says production of Javelin anti-tank missiles in Alabama critical to war effort, as he urges Congress to approve $33bn in aid.
Biden told workers: ‘You’re making a gigantic difference for these poor sons-of-guns who are under such enormous pressure and firepower.’
Joe Biden on Tuesday told assembly-line workers at an Alabama factory that the weapons they are crafting are going into “the hands of Ukrainian heroes” on the front lines of the effort to repel Russian forces.
The US president praised the employees of the Lockheed Martin plant that manufactures Javelin anti-tank missiles, saying their work was critical to the Ukrainian war effort and to the defence of democracy itself.
I continue quoting from the article.
“You’re making a gigantic difference for these poor sons-of-guns who are under such enormous pressure and firepower,” Biden told the workers from a podium flanked by the Javelin missile launchers.
From a sprawling compound in Troy, Alabama, to the battlefields in Ukraine, the anti-tank missiles have helped equip the Ukrainian forces, the president said.
“You’re making it possible for the Ukrainian people to defend themselves, without us having to risk getting into a third world war by sending in American soldiers fighting Russian soldiers.”
While the President of the United States has said that Lockheed Martin was critical to the Ukrainian war effort and to the defence of democracy itself, the Greens in this place have attacked and smeared that organisation which has its Australian headquarters here in Canberra.
Those Greens words would be poison to the brave people of Ukraine, and only give comfort to Vladimir Putin. I am on the side of the West. My colleagues and I are on the side of Ukraine. I say to Lockheed staff here in Canberra, and the staff of all of the other defence industry companies here in Canberra, particularly those who are providing support to the Ukrainian people, thank you. And thank you for the world-class equipment that you provide to our ADF. As we have seen with Ukraine, if you do not have a strong and capable military then there are those who will seek to dominate you. The equipment that you provide to the ADF is what keeps them strong and, in doing so, prevents war. It prevents war, rather than encouraging it, as the Greens assert.
If Ukraine had been armed with Javelin and other Western military equipment in the first place, it is my view, and that of military experts, that Russia would never have invaded Ukraine in the first place. History shows us that a strong, well-equipped military is a deterrence, not something that, as the Greens have asserted, will encourage war.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video