Christmas and the New Year is a time of hope. Yet all this Abbott government and its media spruikers offers is fear – fear of terrorism; fear of asylum seekers and fear of the unemployed are its current playthings.

Thus Abbott tells us about terrorism ‘chatterings’, fitting well into his initial narrative of the Sydney siege as our ‘ brush with terrorism’ and the Daily Telegraph lyingly painting the hostage crisis as being carried out by the IS death cult.

Now two men have been arrested as part of the show trials of Australian justice, one of whom, shock horror, breached his bail conditions by making a phone call from a pay phone.

This government has no jobs to offer the unemployed, no real wage increases for workers, nothing for the homeless, and cuts for health and education. Its only recourse is scaremongering about security and the treats Islam, refugees and ‘dole bludgers’ pose to normal, so called peaceful, society.

It hopes its climate of fear will distract from the increasing unemployment lines, the cuts to real wages, and the engineered decline in social welfare and public services. It hopes in this climate its ruling class unfairness, as exposed so well by its rotten Budget and its attacks on the poor and working class, will disappear into the background.

At times of job insecurity like today, scaremongering can working class supporters.

Normally this type of fear is the enemy of resistance. Yet such is the depth of anger against this government of the 1% that the anti-Muslim rhetoric didn’t catch on and so now Abbott is shifting to the threat of terrorism, seemingly as a cover for Islam, nudge, nudge, wink, wink.

It is possible that some alienated individuals could undertake violent actions, perhaps superficially cloaked in the flag of IS or similar (Monis comes to mind) but to date the terrorist scare campaign seems based more on vague suggestions or misleading interpretations (for example of Monis, of plastic swords) than hard evidence.

Meanwhile, the government 3 days before Christmas announced massive cuts to funding for homeless organisations. As unemployment grows the number of homelss will increase and all this government can offer is scare campaigns.

The appointment of Scott Morrison as Minister for screwing the unemployed will see the targetting of the 780,000 unemployed when only 150000 jobs are available. His mate, the Daily Telegraph, led with a ‘Stop the bludgers’ headline. The real bludgers of course are the ruling class, those who live off our labour, and the politicians, Liberal and Labor, doing their work.

The best way to counter the ruling class climate of fear is to resist their attacks, not fall for their racist, xenophobic and anti-working class rantings and actions. As Orwell said: ‘If there is hope, it lies in the proles.’

At a time of hope Abbott gives us fear