British monarchy will no longer appear on Australian banknotes

The British monarchy will no longer appear on Australian banknotes. The country’s central bank said on Thursday that the new $5 bill will have an Indigenous design instead of a King Charles III image. However, it is still anticipated that the king will be depicted on coins bearing the image of the late Queen Elizabeth II.

Australia’s only remaining banknote with a monarch’s image was the $5 bill.

Australia’s central bank announced on Thursday that the country’s new $5 banknote will not feature Britain’s King Charles III but rather a new design that honors “the culture and history of the First Australians.”

The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) said in a statement that the design will take the place of the portrait of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. They added that the decision was made after consulting with the Australian government.

The $5 banknote, which could be issued in several years, will be designed by the bank in consultation with First Australians, according to the statement.

The Indigenous population of Australia, or First Nations, is made up of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who are descendants of the world’s oldest continuously inhabited culture and have lived on the continent for more than 65,000 years. Together, they make up about 3.2% of the 25 million people in the country.

The RBA says that even after the new banknote is introduced, the current $5 bill will continue to be used and be legal tender. Additionally, officials have stated that current coins bearing the Queen’s image will remain legal tender “forever.”

According to the bank, the decision was made after consulting with the Labor Party government, which came from the center-left and supported the change. According to opponents, the move is motivated by politics.

Australia’s head of state is still the British monarch, albeit largely symbolic these days. Australia, like many other former British colonies, is debating whether or not to keep its constitutional ties to Britain.

The new $5 bill, according to the Reserve Bank of Australia, will have a different design than the portrait of the queen, who died last year. “The culture and history of the First Australians,” the bank claimed, would be honored by the move.

In a statement, the bank said, “The other side of the $5 banknote will continue to feature the Australian parliament.”

According to Treasurer Jim Chalmers, the change presented an opportunity to achieve equilibrium.

“The monarch will still be on the coins, but the $5 note will say more about our history and our heritage and our country, and I see that as a good thing,” he told reporters in Melbourne.

Peter Dutton, the leader of the opposition, compared the move to changing Australia Day’s date.

“I know the silent majority don’t agree with a lot of the woke nonsense that goes on but we’ve got to hear more from those people online,” he told 2GB Radio.

Dutton urged Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to “own up to it” and stated that the king’s decision not to appear on the note was heavily influenced by Albanese.

Albanese started laying the groundwork for an Australian republic the year he took office by creating a new position as assistant minister for the republic. However, his government has not prioritized holding a referendum to break constitutional ties with Britain.

Before the new $5 note goes public, the bank intends to consult with Indigenous groups regarding its design, a process it anticipates will take several years.

The current $5 bill will continue to be used as legal tender even after the new bill is put into circulation until the new design is introduced.

This year, Australian coins are expected to feature King Charles III’s face.

In US dollars, one Australian dollar is approximately equivalent to 71 cents.

The introduction of the 50-pence coin in December marked the beginning of the transition of British currency to the new monarch. Charles is depicted on the coin’s front, and his mother is commemorated on the back.

According to the Reserve Bank of Australia, 208 million $5 notes worth $734 million were in circulation this week.

10 percent of Australia’s more than 2 billion bank notes are of the smallest denomination.

The center-left Labor Party of Albanese wants to turn Australia into a republic where an Australian citizen, not the British monarch, is in charge.

Albanese appointed Matt Thistlethwaite as assistant minister for the republic after Labor won elections in May of that year. In June, Thistlethwaite stated that the queen would not see any change.

In a 1999 referendum that was proposed by a Labor government, Australians voted to keep the British monarch as the country’s head of state.

The government had already pledged to hold a referendum this year to include Indigenous people in the constitution before the queen died. The government has claimed that including a republic question in that referendum would distract from its priority of protecting Indigenous people.

According to Guinness World Records, Queen Elizabeth II appeared in at least 33 different currencies at one point, more than any other monarch.