Anyone Think Australia Might Change It's Coins?

The relative exchange rates of the Australian and NZ dollars means that, whatever the Kiwis do with their money, Australia will follow suit within a decade.

Sooner or later, Australia will be forced to change - when the cost of making them exceeds face value. It's been hovering around the break-even point for a few years now, but hasn't quite been in loss-making territory for long enough to force them to recommend making the change.


I'm afraid you'll be out of luck, there. If the only reason they change the coinage is because the old coins are too expensive to produce, then the $2 is the cheapest of the lot to make - they won't be replacing it with a larger (and therefore more expensive) coin anytime soon. The only thing that might force a change in design of the $2 is as a response to the increasing numbers of counterfeit $2 coins in circulation.


I suspect you are correct, and the RAM is (secretly and unofficially) hoping that the Queen passes away before the cost of coin production forces them to implement two separate changes to the coinage (new specifications and new obverse design).


Are you kidding? If metal prices rise to the point that a 5 cent coin is worth 6 cents on the scrap metal market, then recalling and selling the old coins for scrap metal would gain the government profit, and issuing replacement coinage would gain the government even more profit - remember, they get to book seigniorage as revenue. The only costs is in shipping all that old scrap metal and new coinage supplies all over the country, and that's a cost the banks generally wear, rather than the government.

If our coins were to change then all the vending machines would have to be changed as well.

I think that they will be made out of steel and reatain their current sizes.
Would be nicer if they went with the clad ones like the US coins

Uluru might make a good replacement image, are there any coins featuring Uluru?

The moment to change has passed, for now - at least, for economic reasons. The most logical times would have been the nickel shortage of 2006/7 (when N.Z. made the change) and the copper peak about a year ago (Dec 2010/Jan 2011). Prices for both nickel and copper have been on a downward trend all year, so they're well back into the safe zone. According to CurrencyDebasement.com, metal cost for the 5c, 10c and 20c is currently 57% of their face value.


I've said it before, and I'll say it again: just because we are a monarchy doesn't mean we are obliged to put the queen's portrait on the coinage. Papua New Guinea is a constitutional monarchy with QEII as head of state, just like us, but they don't put her picture on their coins. Of the sixteen Commonwealth Realms, only twelve of them issue their own circulating coinage and of those, only eight of them routinely use the royal portrait on the obverse.

Australian coinage design, as laid out by Section 13A of the 1965 Currency Act, is ultimately up to the federal politicians (specifically, the Treasurer). In theory, Wayne Swan could get rid of the queen's portrait tomorrow. The problem is, every time someone suggests removing her from the coinage, monarchists cry out, "Republicanism by stealth!". No politician is going to be game enough to touch that particular hot potato without a very good reason.

If Australia were to become a republic, a great deal of administrative change and development would have to take place. A change in coinage would only be a part of this. A great deal of cost overall would be attached to the change to a republic. I really don't think that many people have considered the resultant costs of such a large change.

In the area of coinage only, I think Sap is right. Metal costs in most other countries seem to be the main driver of necessary alterations to the coinage system.

True, but it is by far the largest part. Non-material cost of production is typically less than a cent each for small round coins, to a few cents each for the large, funky-shaped 50 cents.


For the foreseeable future, yes I would agree. But just because you and I have trouble imagining a situation where the queen is removed from the coinage without us formally becoming a republic, doesn't mean it will never happen. Stranger things have happened in Australian politics.

Imagine this hypothetical scenario: republican sentiment running high in two or three of the larger states, but low in the rest. A referendum for a republic could get a clear overall majority vote, yet still fail to secure the required majority of states. Under such circumstances, a federal government might feel justified in going with the apparent anti-monarchy majority opinion and remove the monarch from the coinage.

I mainly raised the point to illustrate that "Australia becoming a republic" and "removing the queen from the coinage" are in fact two separate issues - we can in theory do one without doing the other. We could, in theory, even do what Fiji did: become a republic but keep the queen on the coinage.