The federal government’s move to expand its 5% deposit scheme for all first-home buyers is a well-intentioned attempt to address a national housing crisis. With the average buyer needing over a decade to save a 20 per cent deposit, tackling this hurdle seems like a logical first step.

However, the policy’s expansion, which removes income caps and uncaps places, is a classic demand-side stimulus that risks becoming another policy own goal. Economists and property experts have been unequivocal in their warnings. AMP chief economist Shane Oliver predicts that the scheme will supercharge competition, saddling first-home buyers with larger mortgages and ultimately more debt (Oliver, as cited in SBS News, 2025). Property analyst Cameron Kusher agrees, stating the expansion will only “drive prices higher and increase competition for the housing stock” (Kusher, as cited in Commins, 2025). The approach channels taxpayer-guaranteed demand into a supply-constrained market, creating what the Productivity Commission has previously described as an “assistance spiral”, a situation where government assistance inflates prices, prompting calls for more help, which in turn pushes prices higher still (Australian Parliament, 2024). The policy treats the symptom, the deposit gap, while ignoring the underlying disease: a crisis of financial access.

The politically convenient answer is always to build more homes, but the data tells a more complex story. Over the past two decades, Australia’s housing stock has actually grown faster than its population (Grudnoff, 2025). The crisis has deepened regardless. This points to the real challenge: not just a lack of houses, but a rigid, antiquated model of property ownership that locks out millions. A more sustainable solution lies not in government guarantees, but in financial innovation that fundamentally changes how we own property.

This is no longer a niche experiment. The recent decision by ASIC to grant Australia’s first stablecoin licence exemption to AUDM, a venture from ex-NAB bankers, is a clear signal that the foundational plumbing for a new financial system is being laid (AIBC News, 2025). This isn’t an isolated event. It’s part of a deliberate, system-wide regulatory modernisation. The government’s Payments System Modernisation Act, passed in September 2025, expands the RBA’s oversight to include digital wallets and crypto-asset payment providers (HWL Ebsworth, 2025; Mulino, 2025). This will soon be followed by a comprehensive Digital Assets Act, which will create a formal licensing framework for the entire ecosystem (Gilbert + Tobin, 2025; Treasury, 2025a).

What we are witnessing is the emergence of a new financial operating system. In this system, blockchain-based tokenisation provides the foundational layer, creating secure, transparent, and divisible digital representations of real-world assets (RWAs). In this regard, artificial intelligence serves as the essential intelligence layer, enabling the new market to function with unprecedented efficiency and scale. This is systems thinking for the AI era: redesigning the architecture of finance itself, not just patching the cracks in the old one.

The market for tokenised RWAs has already exploded in 2025, growing from $US8.6 billion to over US$24 billion (AntierSolutions, 2025a). Landmark institutional trials, such as Project Acacia, a joint effort by the RBA and major banks, have moved beyond theory. In July 2025, the project successfully integrated tokenised asset settlement with the PayTo real−time payment system. Preliminary estimates suggest Project Acacia could generate approximately $12 billion in annual savings for issuers (Antier Solutions, 2025a).

At its core, tokenisation does what government schemes attempt to, but through a more efficient mechanism. It takes a high-value, illiquid asset, a house, and divides its ownership into thousands of affordable digital tokens (DigitalX, 2023). Consider the model pioneered by ASX-listed DigitalX through its HxART fund, which co-invests alongside homebuyers who can service a mortgage but lack the full deposit, in return for a tokenised equity stake (DigitalX, 2023). It solves the deposit gap without inflating the market with government-backed debt.

This model can be scaled to tackle the chronic under-investment in social and affordable housing. According to industry analysis, tokenising public housing projects is considered a potential use case for attracting private capital (Antier Solutions, 2025b). By creating tokenised funds that hold portfolios of community housing, we can establish a new, resilient asset class where, as a 2025 impact report notes, strong financial performance and meaningful social impact are inherently linked (Nuveen, 2025). This directly appeals to the vast pools of institutional capital increasingly seeking ESG-aligned investments (Primior, 2025; Zulhisham et al., 2025).

Of course, a new financial market of this scale cannot function without a robust intelligence layer. AI provides this: powering dynamic property valuations, analysing portfolio risk, and automating complex compliance checks (Antier Solutions, 2025c; Shamla Tech, 2025). But this must be done with extreme caution. The ghost of the Robodebt scandal serves as a potent reminder of the dangers of deploying automated systems without adequate oversight (Nabavi, 2025). The catastrophic failure of that scheme was not a failure of technology, but rather a failure of a system that lacked transparency and accountability (Nabavi, 2025; The New Daily, 2025).

The only responsible path forward is a framework of “human-in-the-loop” AI, where technology serves to augment, not replace, human judgment (Lukose, 2024). In this model, AI acts as a powerful cognitive assistant, processing vast datasets to surface insights, while a human expert makes the final, accountable decision (Chakravorti, 2023). This ensures fairness, mitigates algorithmic bias, and builds the trust necessary for mainstream adoption (Lukose, 2024).

Australia’s housing crisis is too complex for simple fixes. Demand-side subsidies are a short-term political salve that risks long-term economic pain. Instead of underwriting the old system, policymakers should focus on providing regulatory certainty to enable these new, market-based systems to flourish. With draft legislation for the Digital Assets Act expected within the year, the time for decisive action is now (Chambers and Partners, 2025).

We possess the technology, institutional expertise, and regulatory foresight to lead the world in creating a more accessible and efficient property market. It is time to move beyond tinkering at the edges and embrace the structural innovation that can truly tokenise the Australian dream.

Josh (Adi) Tedjasaputra is an AI Strategist, the founder of Western Australian AI Hub, and a System Thinker in Humanity-centric AI Integration and Data Strategy.

https://www.aiperth.org/

References

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