Two Australian senators have moved to ask the country’s central bank to adopt Bitcoin in a “revolutionary leap.”
Multiple sources report Tuesday how Senators Sam Dastyari and Jane Hume abandoned party politics to join forces on the issue of the Australia’s future financial services industry.
“This will be a revolutionary leap for the Reserve Bank and for Australian financial institutions,” Dastyari said quoted by local news source the Sydney Morning Herald.
“What we want to do here in Parliament is to create the political environment to allow that leap to occur.”
The push marks a departure for Australia’s hitherto somewhat stale approach to cryptocurrency implementation at state level, in contrast to its stance on Blockchain.
Similar to senator Mick Mulvaney’s bipartisan Bitcoin Caucus at the US Congress, Dastyari and Hume envisage multiple benefits for increased state participation, beginning it would seem with education.
“I don't get what the issue is, don't they just melt all the coin bits they don't use?” Dastyari said was the response of a colleague after speaking about Bitcoin.
If successful, Australian efforts could see a swing towards the kind of attitude adopted to cryptocurrency by the state in jurisdictions such as Switzerland. There, citizens are already able to use Bitcoin to perform a variety of municipal duties.
"We can't compete with our Asian neighbors when it comes to producing cheap goods and services anymore. We can compete when it comes to financial services, but that is going to mean big, bold decisions,” Dastyari continued.
Financial services is now Australia’s biggest industry, worth around $145 bln a year.