The recent spate of reporting of polls demonstrates that Labor must continue to assert its strong nation building narrative and economic credentials.

Labor and Kevin Rudd correctly judged the public’s mood by decrying the excesses of extreme capitalism and neoliberalism, and forging a renewed social-democratic path.

Despite the baying of the press gallery and conservative columnists and opinion writers, Australians are confident that Labor has the right political and economic strategy to see us through the global financial crisis.

Labor must continue to hold firm and ignore the ideologues in New Ltd, and by nervous nellies in its own party, who worry each time Hockey or Pyne criticise Labor over debt and deficit.

Rudd and Labor are on strong ground – the Keynesian strategies are exactly what is needed in these times, and there is an army of economists backing them.