I think we can draw a fairly easy conclusion that when it comes to housing this government are hopeless.

So far this year, and it's only February, the Prime Minister promised to fix the housing crisis. Fix it, just like that. Grant Robertson then said he had tools he'd be announcing this month that would tilt the market in favour of the first home buyer.

The day after he announced his announcement, the Reserve Bank announced the return of steeper LVRs for first timers, thus making it harder not easier. So, yes, the market was tilted, but not their way.

Robertson then announced, although not loudly, that the announcement was indeed delayed. I suspect because, as we have said many a time, there are no magic bullets for housing.

And then this week we get the details around the government's progressive home ownership scheme. This is a $400 million plan, and it was part of Kiwibuild. That's the first, and of course, ultimate clue as to the simple truth this lot wouldn’t know houses, even if they were standing outside one with Mike Pero.

Progressive housing is about people being paired with community housing providers and they cut an arrangement. It could be leasing, rent to buy leasehold, or some sort of arrangement whereby they end up owning their own home.

So eight months on in this $400 million programme launched last year as part of the government's “blow Kiwibuild up and start again” announcement,  they have 12 families sorted.

That's one and a half families a month. The programme's target is 1500 to 4000, so quite a wide range in and of itself, almost as though it’s a guess.

At the rate of 1.5 a month, it will take 1000 months to hit their bottom target. That’s 83 years. If they're going for the top end that would be about 2600 months, or 216 years. One assumes the uptake might speed up a bit given we're all dead if it doesn’t. But you get the idea that yet again the promise is going to outperform the delivery.

Meantime the waitlist for social housing, an area where some progress is actually being made, is out to 22,000. But once again reality bites.

Are they building houses? Yes, a bit under 4000, but the queue is 22,000. Even their ultimate promise of 18,000 by 2024, if you believe that, is still short of the current list, which will have grown even further by then.

In other words, even by their own measures, they fail, they know they're going to fail, and yet they keep saying they are going to fix it.

The trouble with facts is they beat hot air. On housing this lot have broken records with hot air, but hot air doesn’t put a roof over your head.