What if West Australians could use Bitcoin freely?

A thought experiment, not currently official Libertarian Party WA policy. This page imagines a "what if": what if West Australians could use Bitcoin freely in their dealings with the state? Today's facts and the law are sourced. Anything about how things could change is illustrative reasoning, not a forecast. It is not currently official Libertarian Party WA policy. It is not financial advice: nothing here suggests you buy, sell or hold Bitcoin or any other asset, and Bitcoin's price can rise and fall sharply.

The better way, in plain words

Your savings are the hours you have worked. When prices rise, those hours buy less. Many people now hold Bitcoin, a digital money with a fixed supply that no government can print more of. Imagine a WA where the state simply let you use it: pay your rego or a licence fee with it if you want to, and no extra state hurdles for doing so. Nobody would have to use it. The choice would be yours.

1. Today: what rising prices do to your money

• In the 12 months to September 2026 (the latest ABS figure at the time of writing), consumer prices rose 4.3%^*. In Perth they rose 4.5%. (ABS, Consumer Price Index, Australia, released 28 October 2026) Our arithmetic: $100 at the end of that year buys what about $95.88 bought at the start (100 ÷ 1.043).
• Over the longer run, the Reserve Bank's own example shows a basket of goods costing $100 in 2000 cost $150.60 in 2015. (RBA Inflation Calculator) Put the other way, $100 kept in a drawer from 2000 bought only about two-thirds as much in 2015 (100 ÷ 150.6 = about 0.66).

Some people see Bitcoin's fixed supply as a way to protect savings from this slow loss. Others point out that its price in dollars has swung wildly. Both points are fair, and this page makes no prediction either way.

* Our view on the 4.3% figure. In our view, the cost of living for working households has risen faster than the headline CPI over recent years, and wages have not kept up. That is not a criticism of how the ABS compiles the CPI. The CPI measures the price of a fixed basket for the average household and leaves out some costs, such as mortgage interest, that working households pay. The figures below are from official sources; the percentages are our arithmetic from the published index numbers, comparing June 2021 with June 2026 unless stated. June 2021 was a time of near record-low interest rates, so measuring from then makes the rise in the living cost index, which includes mortgage interest, look larger, so we also show figures from June 2019, before COVID.

• Working households: up 29.6% since 2021, against 24.1% for the CPI. The ABS Employee Living Cost Index rose from 79.51 to 103.05 over the five years to the June quarter 2026, while the CPI rose from 82.47 to 102.31. A key reason is that the living cost indexes include mortgage interest charges and the CPI does not. To be fair, in the latest year the employee index rose 3.7%, a little less than the CPI, so the gap is a story of the past five years rather than of the last twelve months. From June 2019 the gap is smaller: the employee index rose 31.1% (78.59 to 103.05) against 28.4% for the CPI (79.7 to 102.31). (ABS, Selected Living Cost Indexes, June 2026, Table 1, employee households all groups index, series A4083524T; ABS, Consumer Price Index, September 2026, Table 17, quarterly All groups CPI Australia index, series A2325846C)
• Wages fell behind. The Wage Price Index (hourly pay, excluding bonuses) rose 18.1% over the same five years, from 136.5 to 161.2. That is about 4.8% less than the CPI and about 8.9% less than the employee living cost index, so in real terms hourly pay rates bought less in 2026 than in 2021. From June 2019 wages rose 22.3% (131.8 to 161.2), still about 4.7% behind the CPI. In the latest year wages rose 3.2%. The index measures pay rates for the same jobs; it does not capture promotions, job changes or extra hours, so some people's earnings will have done better. (ABS, Wage Price Index, June 2026, Table 1, total hourly rates of pay excluding bonuses, Australia, private and public, all industries, original, series A2603609J)
• Perth housing far outran wages. House prices are asset prices and are not in the CPI, which counts new dwelling purchases by owner-occupiers but not the price of existing homes or land, so we compare them with wages rather than with the CPI. The ABS mean price of residential dwellings in Western Australia rose from $583,600 in June 2021 to $1,123,700 in June 2026, about 93%, against 18.1% for wages (from June 2019, $500,400, it is about 125% against 22.3% for wages). The Perth rents index in the monthly CPI (whose capital city series start in July 2022) rose about 34%, from 77.37 in July 2022 to 103.8 in June 2026, while wages rose about 15% between June 2022 and June 2026. A mean price is pulled up by expensive homes and changes in the mix of what is sold, so it is a rough guide rather than a typical price. (ABS, Total Value of Dwellings, June quarter 2026, Table 1, mean price of residential dwellings, Western Australia, series A83728627W; ABS, Consumer Price Index, September 2026, Table 10, Rents, Perth, monthly index, series A130392593F)
• Real income per person has gone backwards since 2021. Real household disposable income per person fell about 9% from the September quarter 2021 to the September quarter 2023, when it was back at about its late-2019 level, and in the June quarter 2026 it was still about 5% below its 2021 peak. This household figure is derived: it is our arithmetic, dividing ABS household gross disposable income by the household consumption price deflator and by population, rather than a series the ABS publishes. A broader measure the ABS does publish, real net national disposable income per capita, was $19,409 in the June quarter 2026, about 4% below its June 2022 peak of $20,246. Both are still above their 2012 levels, so claims that living standards are back at 2012 levels are not supported by these figures. (ABS, Australian National Accounts: National Income, Expenditure and Product, June 2026, Table 1, real net national disposable income per capita, seasonally adjusted, series A2304416L; Tables 1, 5 and 20 for the household figure)
• More money in the system. Broad money (M3) grew from $2,511.6 billion in June 2021 to $3,480.9 billion in June 2026, about 38.6%, against 24.1% for the CPI. From June 2019 ($2,147.6 billion) it grew about 62%, against 28.4% for the CPI. (RBA Statistical Table D3, Monetary Aggregates, M3, original, series DMAM3N) Money growth also reflects a growing economy and population, so it is not the same thing as price rises, and it does not prove the CPI is too low.
• Tax takes a growing share. Because income tax thresholds are fixed in dollars while pay rises, more income is taxed at higher rates over time (bracket creep). The PBO estimates bracket creep would lift the average personal income tax rate from 24.9% to 28.5% if not returned, and projects average tax rates will reach their highest level by 2035-36, assuming no further tax cuts are legislated. These are projections, not forecasts. (Parliamentary Budget Office, bracket creep explainer; PBO, 2025-26 Medium-Term Budget Outlook, section 5.3)
• Everyday essentials, latest year. In the 12 months to September 2026, the ABS's non-discretionary series (things households can't easily go without) rose 5.2%, against 4.3% for the CPI as a whole. Housing rose 5.2%, electricity 12.8% (largely because federal rebates ended) and automotive fuel 23.6%. Not everything rose faster: rents rose 3.6%, insurance and financial services 3.9% and food 3.2%. (ABS, Consumer Price Index, September 2026)

Back to the 4.3% figure

A WA home priced in dollars and in bitcoin, 2015 to 2026

In plain words: measured in Australian dollars, the average WA home roughly doubled in price between 2015 and 2026. Measured in bitcoin, the same home went from about 1,684 BTC in June 2015 to about 5.6 BTC in June 2025, then rose again to about 13.3 BTC in June 2026 when bitcoin's price fell. The bottom chart uses a log scale, where each step up the axis is a multiple rather than a fixed amount, because the numbers span such a wide range.

Everyday costs in dollars and in sats

These two small charts show an estimate of weekly rent in Perth and weekly household food and drink spending (national 2015-16 average, moved by Perth food prices) in dollars (blue) and in sats (orange, log scale), at 30 June each year. One bitcoin is 100 million sats.

We have not included a chart for an average new car. We could not find a published, primary source for the average price of a new car in Australia or WA for each year from 2015 to 2026, and we will not make one up.

Please read before drawing conclusions. Bitcoin is volatile. On our own BTC/AUD daily closing prices, it fell by more than 60% from a high to a later low within 2018 (about 80%) and within 2022 (about 64%), and it fell by about 42% between its high and its low in the first half of 2026. The starting year changes the picture: measured from 2015 almost everything looks far cheaper in bitcoin, but measured from a high it can look very different. For example, bitcoin's closing high in 2021 was about A$91,100 on 8 November 2021. By 21 November 2022 it had fallen about 74%, and on 30 June 2026, at about A$84,700, it was still about 7% below that 2021 high, while the WA mean dwelling price in dollars rose about 93% from June 2021 to June 2026. The point of these charts is the dollar's steady loss of buying power over time, not that bitcoin is a sure thing. Past prices say nothing about future prices. This is not financial advice.

Method for every chart on this page: BTC/AUD daily closing price on 30 June (UTC) of each year from Yahoo Finance (ticker BTC-AUD, data provided by CoinMarketCap), downloaded 27 October 2026. Dollar values are June quarter (or June month) figures. Values in BTC and sats are our arithmetic: dollar value divided by that closing price.

2. Today: what the law says

Being honest about the law matters, because a lot of what is said online about money and the Constitution is wrong.

• Currency is Canberra's job. The Constitution gives the federal Parliament power over "currency, coinage, and legal tender" (s51(xii)). It also says "A State shall not coin money, nor make anything but gold and silver coin a legal tender in payment of debts" (s115). (Australian Constitution) So WA cannot create its own currency or make Bitcoin legal tender.
• The Currency Act. Federal law sets the dollar as Australia's unit of currency and deals with how payments and legal tender work. (Currency Act 1965)
• Tax on Bitcoin is federal. The ATO treats most crypto held as an investment as a capital gains tax asset. Spending it, swapping it or selling it is generally a CGT event. A narrow exemption applies to a "personal use asset" acquired for less than $10,000, but crypto held as an investment doesn't qualify. (ATO, Crypto asset as a personal use asset; ATO, How to work out and report CGT on crypto)
• Exchanges are federally regulated. Businesses that exchange crypto for dollars must enrol and register with AUSTRAC under anti-money laundering law. (AUSTRAC, Enrol with us)

None of that stops a state from choosing how its own agencies take payment, or how its own taxes and fees treat Bitcoin. That is where a WA scenario has room to move, subject to proper legal advice.

3. It has been done: Colorado

Since September 2022, the US state of Colorado has accepted cryptocurrency for state tax payments, including income, sales and fuel taxes. The crypto is converted to US dollars by a payment processor (PayPal) before it reaches the state, and the taxpayer pays a service fee of $1 plus 1.83%. Refunds are not paid in crypto. (Colorado Department of Revenue, Cryptocurrency) The state takes no price risk, because it only ever receives dollars.

4. What if: WA lets you use Bitcoin freely

An illustrative before and after, staying within what a state could do:

5. The honest limits

• WA cannot make Bitcoin legal tender, coin money or change federal tax. Capital gains tax and AUSTRAC rules would still apply exactly as they do now.
• A WA scheme would need legal advice on how it fits with the Currency Act and the state's own financial laws. We have not found an Australian state or territory that accepts crypto for state charges today.
• Processing costs money. In Colorado the payer bears the fee, and a WA scheme would have to decide who pays.
• Bitcoin's price is volatile, and nothing here is a view on where it will go. What we can be fairly sure of is this: governments show no sign of slowing their spending, and the money supply keeps growing, so each dollar is likely to buy less year after year. Bitcoin works the other way on supply. Only 21 million will ever exist, and no government can print more.

Reminder: this is a thought experiment, not currently official Libertarian Party WA policy, and not financial advice. We publish it to get West Australians thinking about money, savings and who decides. Tell us what you think, read what we are actually campaigning for on our policies page, or join us.