Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's wife says he "worked his guts out" to protect the economy during the Global Financial Crisis.
And she's rubbished talk the economy is in trouble.
Therese Rein made the comments when asked on Brisbane radio on Wednesday to identify the most misunderstood thing about her husband's leadership.
"The thing that's most wrong about the current narrative is that the economy is in trouble, that's wrong," she told ABC radio.
Ms Rein said the Rudd government's stimulus package during the GFC stopped Australia going into recession.
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"This is the man who, during the Global Financial Crisis, absolutely worked his guts out to understand what went wrong during the Great Depression," she said.
"He worked tirelessly to find out what alternative responses might have worked - that's why he went with a stimulus package, rather than an austerity package.
"The day before those stimulus cheques landed ... you could've fired a cannon through those shopping centres and not hit anyone.
"And the day those stimulus cheques landed, the women of Australia went shopping, and the blokes. That provided an immediate pick-up and stopped people losing their jobs.
"Hundreds of thousands of people didn't lose their jobs and hundreds of thousands of businesses didn't need to shut."
