Without question, this afternoon's address will be a rousing, and at times electrifying and inspirational affair, paying homage to Labour icons and more than touching base with the party's core constituency of the low-paid and the jobless.
Which will be just as well. Because there is precious little else on show at this conference so far to rouse, electrify or inspire voters - especially mainstream ones - to even think about taking a fresh look at Labour.
That should worry the delegates. But making the party electable seems to be of almost secondary concern to many of the party's rank-and-file membership.
For them it is payback time. Mr Cunliffe's championing at last year's conference of the push for more democracy within the party ultimately paid off for him, cementing his status as the wider party's preferred choice as leader.
But everything comes at a price. Mr Cunliffe is the Left's man. They have given him a power base outside the caucus. They have got him where they want him. He is now expected to start backing up the rhetoric with some real substance.
And judging from conference papers alone, that means heading in one direction - leftwards.
The question non-partisan observers will be asking is whether the content as much as the tone of today's speech plus a policy announcement timed for tomorrow will be enough to obscure tensions over the party's direction - the unfinished business from last year's conference.
This year's gathering is not going to be a repeat of that shambolic and confrontational affair. But it is most definitely a sequel, a kind of Revenge of the Nerds II.
Marching leftwards is neither in Mr Cunliffe's best interests nor Labour's, as a mainstream party.
However, for sections of the wider membership, Mr Cunliffe's victory in the leadership race was part of a power struggle for Labour' s soul.
Those elements seem more fixated with winning internal battles in the political sandpit rather than confronting National in the bear-pit.
They would seem to prefer engaging in a pointless war with the Greens for the relatively few votes on the far left.
All this has prompted some dark mutterings in some quarters about the lunatics having finally taken over the asylum.
Mr Cunliffe is obliged to go along for the ride - at least for now.
National cannot believe its luck. It is puzzled by Mr Cunliffe's invisibility in recent weeks as well as a seeming lack of urgency, given his immediate declaration of war on the old enemy on being elected leader back in September.
Indeed, a year out from a general election and less than a month out from a must-win by-election in Christchurch East you might think Labour would want to use the conference as a giant billboard or at least a taster of its blueprint for achieving a more prosperous society for all.
You could be excused thinking this might also be an opportunity for the caucus spokesmen and women in key portfolios to give some indication of their thinking even though they may not have been in those roles for very long.
Instead, the conference will devote several hours to wrangling over the wording of a ''policy platform'' document setting out Labour's values, vision and priorities and which has already been months in the drafting.
The platform is supposed to answer that perennial question: what does Labour stand for. You can safely bet that 99.9% of all voters will never set eyes upon it, let alone read it.
This is the kind of navel-gazing exercise that a party undertakes and completes in the year following an election - not a year out from the next one.
It all reinforces the impression of a party focused inwards rather than outwards.
That is underlined by the series of policy remits which deal with such pressing matters as compulsory Maori language classes in schools, apologising to Maori over the foreshore and seabed farrago, state funding of political parties (a hardy annual) and entrenching the Bill of Rights (whatever difference that would make).
Many of the items amount to wishlist policies produced by the party's various sector groups. They prompt the words ''out of touch'' to spring to mind.
Even on a matter of moment - state asset sales - Labour seems to be living in the past. One policy proposal up for debate at yesterday's workshops would see a review of the state-owned enterprises model so that it was no longer ''pro-capitalist'' and enabled ''workers' participation, control and management of industry''.
Such remits are usually forgotten as soon as the conference has debated them. The question is how they make it on to the conference agenda in the first place.
The party seems to have learnt nothing from Helen Clark's government which was tossed out of power for crimes of political correctness. In short, new leader, same old party.
- John Armstrong is The New Zealand Herald political correspondent.
