New Australian banknote restores a tradition

THE Reserve Bank of Australia has announced that Queen Elizabeth II’s portrait on Australia’s $5 banknote will not be replaced by one of Charles III (as is happening in the UK). It will instead show a design that “honours the culture and history of the First Australians”.

While some will complain this is a break from the tradition of the reigning monarch’s head being on the lowest-denomination banknote, that has only been the case in Australia since 1966, when decimal currency was introduced.

Before that, navigator and cartographer Matthew Flinders appeared on the lowest (ten shilling) note. The queen was on the pound note (equal to 20 shillings). The Reserve Bank of Australia consulted the federal government, which supports the change, but the decision is its own.

An opinion poll last year indicated just 34% of Australians wanted to see King Charles replace his mother on the $5 note, with 43% preferring another person, such as a famous Australian, and 23% were undecided.

While breaking with one “tradition”, an indigenous motif on the lowest-denomination banknote restores another.

When decimal currency was introduced in 1966, the lowest-denomination banknote was the $1 note. One side featured a youthful Queen Elizabeth and the Australian coat of arms. The other showed an indigenous design, based on a bark painting by artist David Malangi Daymirringu, a Yolngu man from what is now northeastern Arnhem Land, and others.

The Reserve Bank’s governor at the time was HC “Nugget” Coombs, a strong advocate for Indigenous Australians. But to his later embarrassment, it turned out no one at the bank thought to ask permission to copy the artworks used in the design – nor offer payment.

Only after the banknote was issued did an Adelaide newspaper report on the treatment of Malangi, who came to be known as “Dollar Dave”.

Coombs subsequently sought to make amends. Malangi was paid $1 000 (the same given to those whose art was used on other banknotes), and was given a fishing kit and a special medallion Coombs commissioned.

The $1 note was phased out in 1984). The first Australian banknote to honour an indigenous individual was the $50 note in 1996, with the change from paper to polymer notes.

Portraits of scientists Howard Walter Florey and Sir Ian Clunies Ross were replaced by Australia’s first female parliamentarian, Edith Cowan, and David Unaipon, a Ngarrindjeri man from what is now south-eastern South Australia.

What do other Commonwealth countries do? New Zealand has the Indigenous name of the country (Aotearoa) and its Reserve Bank (Te Ptea Matua) on its notes. This is feasible as there is one dominant indigenous language, whereas in Australia there are hundreds.

One note (the $50) honours a Mori individual Apirana Ngata, the first Mori to graduate from a local university and a parliamentarian for 38 years.

The Reserve Bank of Australia is a founding member of the international Central Bank Network for Indigenous Inclusion, along with its peers in Canada and New Zealand. So there may be international discussion of the issues involved.

But the key to ensuring the design fulfils its potential to bring the country together and heal old wounds will be to consult with those whose culture the design is meant to honour.