In which the pond plays shrink to sooth the savage Savva's sorrowful heart ...

Say what?

Have a positive attitude? Always look on the bright side of life and spouse? Do we get to sing a jolly song while thinking positive thoughts? Or will we be whisked off to the cornfield lickety-split?

By jingo, he's on to something here, this Malware chappie, but in consequence, the pond thought this was the very best time to wheel out Dr Freud's patented couch ... because it was likely that the savage Savva might need some soothing attention ...

By any usual reckoning - of policy, as opposed to jingoistic, nationalist rhetoric - Malware's gambit on 457 was a failure.

The IT industry felt threatened, and the mutton Dutton's response to Atlassian was astonishing in its ignorance:

“Are they going into schools looking for young kids to go and work in jobs? Are they employing mature aged workers who have found themselves out of a job elsewhere?”

Atlassian does software development involving high level coding.

The mutton Dutton makes your average brick seem less thick ...

And then there was the failure to think through what to do about high end academics, as discussed in Fairfax's 'They're not flipping burgers': Universities cry foul over axing of 457 visas.

There's no doubt 457 needed reform - but in the process it would have been simple to reassure and protect the original high tech and innovative purposes for which the scheme was devised. All that needed to happen was that stake holders be involved ...

Malware is a stumblebum of the first water, now seeking refuge in xenophobia and strident nationalism, the first and last refuge of the humbug.

There are other more minor IT matters that have dropped under the radar, with a kindly reader sending the pond a link to Ebay threatens to block Aussies from global purchases Easier than collecting GST ...

This is a slow burner, because the brightest minds in the government don't have the first fucking clue how to work it out in the legislation ...

Which brings the pond to the reptiles and soothing Savva and the air of desperation surrounding Malware's every move and that need for Dr Freud's couch ... because these were the top two stories in the digital Oz this morning ...

There was that subsidiary story about not harming the bush which resulted in another burst of jingoistic nonsense ...

Regional industries that struggle to attract Australian workers will continue to have exemptions to ensure they can employ foreigners under the government’s 457 crackdown, as the Coalition moves to reassure business that its “Australian first” policy will not harm the economy. Facing allegations from Labor that axing the 457 program was a “con job”, Malcolm Turnbull said yesterday that the new temporary visa scheme would “create more opportunities for Australians to get jobs” and reduce the number of foreign workers in the country. “It will depend obviously on the demands of the economy and on skill shortages but you see we’ve got two objectives here; one is to ensure that wherever an Australian is available to fill an Australian job vacancy, the Australian fills it,” the Prime Minister said. “The second thing is to ensure that we do not have skills gaps identified or occupations identified where there isn’t a skill gap.”

How many 'Australians' can be fitted into a sentence, let alone a job?

What next? Bring back the White Australia policy, just to ensure that the right Australian fills the right Australian job vacancy?

But talk of the bush reminded the pond of another fire front, as celebrated by Rowe this day, with more excellent celebratory Rowe here ...

All jolly good fun amongst chums, and the cattle, sheep and pigs being shipped out to new pastures, but it's about time for the pond to put Savva on the couch to see what is revealed, as she scribbles directly from her subconscious thoughts ...

As suspected, the strain is showing and the patient is revealing all sorts of conflicting tensions ... with a huge anxiety attack about the rats in the ranks likely to indulge in another frolic once the next Newspoll comes up for air ...

There's also a huge dose of paranoia about Comrade Bill ...

And then there's the messy business of mopping up after the children have spattered the walls ... summarised in that notion that Turnbull is decidedly jingoistic, but hasn't crossed over into xenophobia ...

This immediately brought out the pedant in the pond ... it seems that Malware, with his recent moves on both 457 and thinking positive thoughts or its off to the corn field with you, is being xenophobic ...at least if we're to trust the dictionary ...

Now he might also conform to the dictionary definition of a jingo ...

Yes, the pond wouldn't put it past Malware to back Disraeli and the use of British forces against Russia in 1878 ... it seems in relation to technology and IT that his heart lies back in the good old days of Queen Victoria's copper.

Small wonder that the startled Savva finds herself in need of soothing ...

Oh fuck. Actually Easter is the time to go to the footy, if you happen to be a boofhead, or to indulge in a thousand and one other secular activities. 

It's a sure sign of deep trauma and emotional stress when a reptile starts blathering about the need to contemplate resurrection and ascension, given Malware's desperate need to do both ...

And what to make of that joke about the hopeless wogs of Italy? Not that we're in any way jingoists in this country ...

Of course, there's a worm in the rose causing the sickness, and Savva knows the problem ...

Yes Comrade Bill never shut up all over Easter, and then while never shutting up, somehow managed to give clear air to the onion muncher on Easter Monday by shutting up...

No wonder Savva is on the couch, no wonder that the pond has to murmur sweet platitudes in the hope of restoring some kind of mental health ...

Let's see if at least we can manage to reduce the matter of Adani and an Indian billionaire pocketing a billion in Australian taxpayer subsidies to a matter of race, and never no mind that the pond might previously have read stories such as Adani's planned Carmichael coal mine to shift millions to Cayman Islands controlled company:

Indeed, indeed. It seems Malcolm Turnbull has never seen a Cayman Islands routine he's never failed to admire ...

Up to $3 billion from Adani's planned Carmichael coal mine will be shifted to a subsidiary owned in the Cayman Islands if the controversial project goes ahead, an analysis of company filings shows. 
An "overarching royalty deed" gives a shell company rights to receive a $2-a-tonne payment, rising yearly by the inflation rate, beyond the first 400,000 tonnes mined in each production year for two decades. The company with this entitlement is ultimately owned by Atulya Resources Limited, a secretive entity registered in the Cayman Islands, and controlled by the Adani family. "In plain English, the upshot for the Adani family is [that] if the mine goes ahead, they receive a $2-a-tonne payment, so up to $3 billion, via a Cayman Islands company, a company owned in a tax haven," says Adam Walters, principal researcher and Energy Resource Insights. With a production capacity of 60 million tonnes or more a year, that amounts to about $120 million per annum in payments, increasing each year in line with the CPI, potentially flowing offshore. "I would describe it as a structure that means that the Adani family enriches themselves if the mine goes ahead but that other shareholders are impoverished," associate professor Thomas Clarke, director of the Centre for Corporate Governance at UTS told the ABC.

And that's before anyone gets on to the climate science that Malware purports to accept or the reef Malware claims to love ...

No wonder the tame in-house pet Savva has to savage the little yelping Comrade Bill ... as the pond knows, constant yapping is an irritant ... damn you neighbourhood dog ... so turning the talk into who's the biggest racist is a very handy flipping of the burger ...

And so to a final complex - or is it a neurosis? - which in lieu of deeper analysis, the pond has dubbed a persecution complex, mingled with a sense of doom ...

The pond thinks too much reading of French existentialists is to blame, or perhaps it's a dose of fatalism ...

Already the nightmare is etched in the mind "If Shorten is elected, say next year ..."

The "if" followed by the acknowledging "say"? It's like the Delphic oracle foretelling the worst ...

But what's apparently the worst consequence? That he's a policy failure or even a bit of a dropkick?

Nope, it will be seven prime ministers in 11 years, and then, if he doesn't grow into the job, there'll be another one ...

Actually, there were six different prime ministers from federation to the first world war, six in 14 years, and two of them, Deakin and Fisher, ran three prime ministerships, and if you count it that way, there were 11 prime ministerships in 14 years ...(see photos here).

A little instability at the top is just a reflection of the way that lots of poor bugger in the country now work with minimal job security, on contracts that offer termination with a week or a month's notice ...

Malware made heaps from this employment structure, so he and Savva had better get used to the way new job descriptions work ...

As for that fatalistic last word, that "Ciao" which revealed a deep alienation from Italians and perhaps history, and perhaps an addiction to movies, the pond was moved to remember the last line in one of The Mummy franchise flicks ..."Yeah, ciao, ciao, Shanghai, Peru here I come ..."

Well the pond can only prescribe sedatives to sooth the Savva and hope she gets better. Perhaps she might also take in the last lines of a more positive movie, a pond favourite ...

"There's a Christmas tree somewhere in London with a bunch of presents underneath it that'll never be opened. And I thought: 'If I survive all this, I'll go to that house, apologize to the mother there, and accept whatever punishment she chose for me.' Prison, death, it didn't matter. Because at least in prison and at least in death, you know, I wouldn't be in fuckin' Canberra hitched to a fucking jingoistic, xenophobic inept dropkick Cayman Island loving luddite loser. 
But then, like a flash, it came to me, and I realized: 'Fuck, man, maybe that's what Hell is. The entire rest of eternity spent in fuckin' Canberra in company with a fucking jingoistic, xenophobic, inept dropkick copper living loser!' And I really, really hoped I wouldn't die. I really, really hoped I wouldn't die. Or at least that I got a chance to vote real soon ..."

Or perhaps a Pope cartoon might help Savva to a more stable outlook, with more stabilising Pope cartoons here ...