You know, usually when we talk about the things
that carry around every day, we focus on our
phones, our keys, maybe like a favorite pen.
Right, the essentials. Yeah, exactly. But I want
you to think about the physical money in your
wallet right now, specifically the paper, well,
I guess the plastic cash. If you even have any
physical cash on you these days. Right. But think
about it. How often do you actually stop to look
at it? versus just, you know, handing it over
the counter or feeding it into a vending machine.
Yeah, most people just register the color and
the number in the corner. It's just a means to
an end. Totally. But today, we're doing a deep
dive into the Australian $5 note, and we're pulling
all our insights straight from this incredibly
comprehensive Wikipedia article about its life
cycle. And it is a fascinating life cycle. It
really is. Because if you look closely at the
Fiverr, You aren't just looking at money. You're
looking at this piece of indestructible, highly
engineered plastic that tells a huge story. Yeah,
a piece of currency is never just a transaction
tool. It's really a mirror. It reflects a nation's
technological progress, and it's shifting values
over time. Okay, let's unpack this. Because the
story of the fiber... doesn't actually start
with its physical invention. It starts with this
massive structural shift in the Australian economy.
Right, the shift to decimal currency. Exactly.
Take us back to the mid -1960s. Australia is
still using the British system, right? Pounds,
shillings, pence. Oh, yeah. A system that required,
like, a degree in advanced mathematics just to
buy groceries. That sounds like a nightmare.
It was incredibly convoluted. You had 12 pence
to a shilling, 20 shillings to a pound. So calculating
simple change involves some serious mental gymnastics.
I can't even imagine. So on February 14th, 1966,
Australia completely overhauls its economy overnight.
They switched to decimal currency. Just ripping
the bandaid off. Exactly. The Australian dollar
is born and everything shifts to a clean base
10 system. The whole country had to relearn how
to value everyday objects. But here's the crazy
part about that changeover day in 1966. They
rolled out the new money. Right. The ones, the
twos, the tens. Yeah. But there was no five dollar
note. The fiver didn't actually show up until
15 months later on May 29th, 1967. Which is such
a fascinating psychological. quirk of economics.
It's like a brand new puzzle piece being invented
that didn't even exist in the old box. Why the
delay? Well, it comes down to translation. When
you transition an entire economy's currency,
you generally map the old notes directly to the
new ones just to help people adjust. OK, that
makes sense. Right. So a 10 shilling note became
a one dollar note, a one pound note became a
two dollar note, and a five pound note became
a ten dollar note. They just needed the math
to perfectly align so the public would trust
the new paper. Precisely. But there was no direct
equivalent for a $5 note in the old system. So
it just didn't exist in the new one either. Exactly.
To get exactly $5 in the old money, you would
have needed a note worth 2 pounds and 10 shillings,
which was not a thing. The $5 concept literally
did not exist in their economic vocabulary. So
why bother introducing a completely new denomination
out of thin air 15 months later? Because the
creation of the $5 note was this deliberate step
in building a modern independent economic identity.
Oh, wow. Yeah, once the initial shock of the
1966 decimal switch had settled, the Reserve
Bank realized they needed to push the public
to stop converting everything back to pounds
and shillings in their heads. Oh, so forcing
them to think in the new system. Exactly. It
was about firmly stepping away from the ghosts
of the British fractional system and fully embracing
a clean, modern decimal world. And the physical
design of that very first note really reflected
that ambition, didn't it? It did. It wasn't plastic
yet, obviously. It was a traditional paper note,
and it had this striking gradient of mauve with
a really distinct black overprint. Yeah, very
classic look. It was designed by Gordon Andrews,
the famous Australian artist Russell Drysdale,
acting as an advisor, and they packed so much
specific history onto it. They really did. The
artwork was incredibly intricate, acting almost
like a colonial scrapbook. Right, it had Sir
Joseph Banks, the botanist who traveled with
Captain Cook. And Caroline Chisholm, who did
all that pioneering philanthropic work for immigrant
women in the 19th century. But they layered those
portraits over like elevations of Sydney streets
from an 1848 publication and a watercolor of
a ship called The Waverly. even a hand bill from
a loan society. They packed the entire foundational
history of colonial New South Wales onto one
little rectangle of mauve paper. Sourced entirely
from the Stay Library, yeah. But there's this
tiny statistical quirk in these early paper notes
that I find so interesting. Oh, you mean the
subtle text change at the top of the note? Yeah.
So if you look at the notes issued between 1967
and 1974, and they printed over 195 million of
them, by the way. A massive amount. Right. They
proudly read Commonwealth of Australia but after
1974 they just dropped the Commonwealth. It did.
From 1974 until the end of the paper era in 1992
they printed over 978 million notes that simply
read Australia. It's a subtle shift but shrinking
the text actually expands the independence. Totally.
It's moving from being a child of the empire
to simply stating your own name on the global
stage. That's a great way to put it but you know
As beautiful and symbolic as those paper notes
were, paper has a fatal flaw. It really does.
It rips, it tears, it absorbs moisture. It gets
accidentally put through the washing machine
in the pocket of your jeans and turns into a
sad little clump of mauve lint. Exactly. And
the Reserve Bank realized that replacing all
these destroyed paper notes was costing an absolute
fortune. So they needed something vastly more
durable. And that necessity drove a massive technological
leap. Australia decided to invent Polymer bank
notes. Plastic money. And here's where it gets
really interesting. Because being a pioneer means
you are the first one to make the really big
mistakes. Oh, definitely. On July 7, 1992, Australia
introduces its first polymer version of the note.
It's supposed to be the future of global currency.
And the manufacturing process itself is wild,
isn't it? It's incredible. They don't just print
on plastic like it's paper. Right. The foundation
is this specialized material called biaxially
oriented polypropylene. Say that five times fast.
Right. Or BOPP for short. It starts as a completely
clear transparent film. Okay. And to create the
note, they print multiple layers of specially
formulated opaque inks called opacifiers onto
both sides of this clear plastic. So they're
essentially painting the note onto the plastic.
Exactly. And they deliberately leave certain
areas unpainted to create transparent windows.
That is brilliant. So the window isn't like a
piece of chloroplastic glued into a hole. The
whole note is clear plastic and the window is
just the part they didn't paint over. That is
some serious molecular level engineering. But
despite all that brilliant engineering, they
kept the original mauve color, specifically a
very pale mauve. Yes. And they completely failed
basic human usability. They really did, because
a piece of currency has one fundamental job before
anything else. You need to know exactly how much
it's worth the second you look at it. Right,
obviously. And people found this new pale mauve
$5 note incredibly difficult to distinguish from
the existing $10 note, which was blue. Especially
if you were at a dimly lit bar or like in the
back of a taxi at night. It was a disaster. People
were constantly handing over $10 thinking it
was five or getting the wrong change. It is the
ultimate irony. You spend years in a laboratory
creating a high -tech polymer material that is
virtually indestructible, and then you fail at
basic color coordination. It happens so often
with new tech, though. It's like releasing a
state -of -the -art smartphone, but making the
call button invisible. Yeah, if we connect this
to the bigger picture, early adoption of any
new technology always comes with unforeseen user
experience hurdles. In a controlled laboratory
setting under bright, perfectly calibrated fluorescent
lights, the designers clearly thought the pale
mauve looked perfectly distinct from the blue
tin. But out in the wild, in the real world of
shadowed wallets and rush transactions, it Completely
failed the test. Completely. The public outcry
was massive. And it forced them into iterative
design, right? Yeah. They had to fix it fast.
They did. In April 1995, they released a revised
polymer issue. And this time, they didn't mess
around. They went with a much deeper, richer,
unmistakable shade of mauve. And they completely
changed the font for the Numeral 5 to make it
really jump off the plastic. This 1995 design
cemented the modern look of the Fiverr. They
put Queen Elizabeth II and eucalyptus leaves
on the front and the new Parliament House in
Canberra on the back. And because they had finally
perfected the polymer canvas and fixed that usability
issue, they realized something important. What's
that? They didn't just have to use this indestructible
material for utility, they could use it for art.
Oh, right. Once the structural integrity was
solved, the Reserve Bank began utilizing the
$5 note to showcase an evolving, highly detailed
picture of Australian identity. And the first
real taste of this artistic shift happened in
2001, didn't it? Yes. They issued a special four
-year commemorative note to celebrate the centenary
of Federation. They actually took the Queen off
the front temporarily for that one. They did,
replacing her with Sir Henry Parks, one of the
founding fathers of Federation. And on the back,
they featured Catherine Helen Spence, a prominent
writer and suffragist. But the true artistic
and technological revolution happens a bit later
on September 4th, 2016. The release of the next
generation banknote, the NGB series. Right. And
for you listening, I want you to imagine the
money in your own pocket right now completely
changing its vibe. It was a massive ideological
shift in what the currency should communicate.
Imagine shifting from stuffy portraits of colonial
politicians and British monarchs to vibrant native
biodiversity and rich indigenous art. It's a
huge contrast. The 2016 note features the prickly
Moses wattle, which is a native shrub, and this
gorgeous native bird called the eastern spinebill.
So cool. And on the reverse, while they did keep
the image of Parliament House, they added a deeply
significant cultural element. Yeah, they included
a detailed depiction of the mosaic forecourt
that sits directly in front of the actual Parliament
building in Canberra. That artwork is called
Possum and Wallaby Dreaming, right? Designed
by the acclaimed indigenous artist, Comanche
Jagamara. Exactly. So by replacing colonial politicians
with native flora and indigenous art, they aren't
just updating a picture. What are they doing?
They are literally forcing millions of people
to carry a reminder of the country's original
heritage in their pockets every single day. That
is so powerful. It puts the world's oldest living
culture right alongside the modern democratic
institutions. It acts as a daily subconscious
reminder of the nation's broader cultural synthesis.
A banknote is one of the few objects that interacts
with every single demographic of a country, regardless
of class, age, or background. So when the art
changes, the national conversation subtly shifts
with it. Exactly. But let's be real for a second.
These complex, intricate new designs weren't
just commissioned because the Reserve Bank wanted
to curate a pocket -sized art gallery. No, definitely
not. This beautiful artwork is actually the frontline
defense in a highly secretive escalating arms
race against counterfeiters. The artistry is
entirely a vehicle for security. Right, because
as commercial printing technology advanced in
the late 80s and 90s, high -end inkjet printers
democratized counterfeiting. The old paper notes
from the 60s and 70s were suddenly incredibly
vulnerable. They relied on much simpler tech
back then, like a watermark of Captain James
Cook hidden in the paper. And a metallic strip.
embedded inside the note. Oh, I read about that.
They actually had to move that metallic strip
from the center of the paper note to the left
side in 1976. Do you know why? Yeah, simply because
having it in the middle was causing the notes
to pile up unevenly when they were stacked in
bank faults. Which is such a funny logistical
nightmare. But fast forward to the next generation
polymer notes, and the security is just staggering.
It is basically a flat, flexible computer chip
of optical illusions. This is where that clear
plastic polymer base becomes a true superpower.
How so? Well, counterfeiters generally rely on
high -end paper printers, but you cannot print
clear onto paper. By putting a massive top -to
-bottom transparent window right through the
polymer note featuring a stylized gum flower,
You instantly defeat the vast majority of traditional
counterfeiting methods. The features they layered
into this NGB series sound like they belong in
a spy movie. They really do. There's a shadow
image of the Australian coat of arms that only
appears when you hold it up to the light. Yep.
And my absolute favorite feature there are these
tiny star points printed on both sides of the
note. Four points on the front, three on the
back. And when you hold the node up to the light,
they align perfectly to form a solid seven -pointed
star. Think about the manufacturing colorances
required for that. It requires microscopic printing
precision. If the front and back print plates
are misaligned by even a fraction of a millimeter
during this high -speed mass production, that
star looks blurred when held to the light. Which
makes it exceptionally difficult to replicate
in the basement. Exactly. And that's before we
even talk about the ultraviolet features. All
UV features are fantastic. If you put this note
under UV light, hidden elements suddenly glow,
the serial number glows, and a specific square
patch on the back lights up. Plus, there is tactile
raise micro printing all over the note that you
can actually feel by scraping your fingernail
across it. Okay, but I have to push back here.
Sure, go ahead. We are living in a deeply digital
world. Everyone is tapping their phones, using
smartwatches, transferring money instantly on
apps. Why invest millions upon millions of dollars
engineering ultraviolet squares and tactile micro
printing into physical plastic? Isn't cash rapidly
becoming obsolete? It's a very common assumption,
especially if you live in a major urban center.
But the economic data tells a completely different
story. Really? Yeah. According to the Reserve
Bank statistics, by mid 2017, there were 211
million of these specific $5 NGB notes in circulation.
Wow. That equates to over a billion dollars.
$1 ,055 million, to be exact, just in $5 nets.
That is wild. It represents 14 % of all banknotes
in circulation. Physical cash remains a massive,
fundamental, and highly vulnerable foundation
of the broader economy. So the threat of counterfeiting
is still very real. If criminals can easily replicate
a $5 note and flood the market, the foundational
economic trust completely unravels. But all this
complex engineering isn't just about stopping
criminals, is it? It actually solves a massive
societal problem that paper money always struggled
with. Yes. What's fascinating here is how security
technology overlaps with accessibility. Right.
Those tactile features you mentioned, the raised
micro -printing you can feel with a fingernail,
they serve a crucial dual purpose. For the visually
impaired. Exactly. Before these tactile features,
visually impaired citizens had to rely on portable
measuring guides or just trust the cashier to
hand them the correct change. Which is a huge
loss of independence. It is. The raised mamps
allow them to confidently and independently navigate
their finances. literally feel the denomination
of the note in their hand. So the technology
protects the macroeconomic system, but it also
protects the individual's autonomy. Beautifully
said. So the physical security of the note is
as close to impenetrable as modern science allows.
But right now, the symbolic face of the note,
the actual soul of what it represents, is undergoing
its most significant transformation in history.
From a purely historical perspective, a currency
redesign captures a major societal pivot. And
we should state for the record here, we are simply
outlining the factual events and decisions made
by the Reserve Bank, not taking any political
stance on this. Of course, just reporting the
timeline. Following the death of Queen Elizabeth
II, who had been the face of the $5 note for
decades, discussions immediately began about
the future of the denomination. And on February
6th in 2023, the Reserve Bank made a historic
announcement. They stated that the new monarch,
King Charles III, will not appear on the new
$5 note. Right. Instead, on March 17, 2025, they
officially unveiled the theme for the upcoming
redesign. The new note will celebrate First Nations
peoples and their deeply rooted connection to
the country. And significantly, the federal parliament
house will continue to remain on the reverse
side of the note. So what does this all mean?
Well, it raises an important question about the
purpose of money in the 21st century. It acts
as a real -time historical document. Because
it captures exactly when a society decides to
pivot. Exactly. It documents the transition from
traditional monarchical ties to honoring indigenous
roots. And when you look at the specific detail
that Parliament House is saying on the back while
the front shifts to honoring First Nations peoples,
it suggests a really fascinating architectural
bridge. How do you mean? You are literally putting
the world's oldest living culture on one side
of the currency and the modern system of government
on the exact same piece of plastic. That's a
great observation. It physically connects the
two. Every time someone interacts with the new
currency, they're holding a representation of
a country that is actively trying to reconcile
its ancient past with its modern governance.
Which brings us full circle on the incredible
journey of this little piece of plastic. It really
is a wild evolution when you zoom out. We started
with a pre -decimal era where the five dollar
value literally did not exist. It was just a
gap in the math. Then it was willed into existence
as this mauve paper canvas covered in a very
curated colonial history. Then it went through
those awkward pale mauve plastic teenager years
where Nobody could tell it apart from a 10 in
a dark room. Only to finally mature into a high
-tech, UV -glowing, micro -printed marvel that
is currently sitting at the very center of a
massive national identity shift. The next time
you, our listener, hold any piece of physical
currency, whether it's an Australian fiver, an
American dollar, or a euro, take a moment to
really look at it. Yeah, look at the watermarks,
feel the textured art. Examine the specific portraits
they chose to include and the ones they chose
to leave out. Realize that you are not just holding
money. You are holding a miniature, highly engineered
time capsule that tells you exactly what that
country values at that exact moment in time.
And it leaves me with this final thought for
you to ponder. As we move closer and closer to
a completely cashless, digital society, a world
where everything is just numbers on a glowing
screen, will future generations look back at
these meticulously crafted, tactile polymer notes,
not as mere money? Oh, that's interesting. Well,
they look back at them as mass produced pocket
sized pieces of national art that we simply took
for granted. Something to think about the next
time you bypass the tap to pay and pull that
physical money out of your wallet.