I should be accustomed to watching politicians failing to fix problems, but somehow I can never get used to it.

The capacity for Australian politicians to blunder when we need them to excel is quite extraordinary.

And I think part of the problem is that politicians are really only interested in the press conference and haven’t thought much beyond that.

And so it is with the political response to the housing crisis.

The Prime Minister got together with all the state and territory premiers and first ministers to talk about fixing the housing shortage.

These are our national leaders, the people we have elected to fix problems - like not enough dwellings, the absence of affordability and the sharp rise in residential rents.

So they got together and talked about it and then held a press conference in front of the assembled media.

What they presented was laughable.