Australia is to erase the British monarch from its banknotes, replacing Queen Elizabeth II’s image on its A$5 note with a design honoring indigenous culture, the Australian central bank said yesterday.
The decision to leave her successor, King Charles III, off the A$5 note means no monarch would remain on Australia’s paper currency.
The Reserve Bank of Australia said it would consult indigenous people on a new design that “honors the culture and history of the first Australians.”
Photo: REUTERS
The queen’s death on Sept. 8 last year was marked by public mourning in Australia, but some indigenous groups also protested against the destructive impact of colonial Britain, calling for the abolition of the monarchy.
Australia is a constitutional monarchy, a democracy with Charles III as its head of state. A referendum proposing a switch to a republic was narrowly defeated in 1999.
The central bank said that its decision was supported by the center-left Labour government of Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who favors an eventual move to an Australian republic.
The new banknote would take “a number of years” to be designed and printed, it said, adding that the existing A$5 note would remain legal tender even after the new design is in people’s hands.
The bank’s move was hailed by the head of Australia’s republican movement, who said that indigenous people predated British settlement by 65,000 years.
“Australia believes in meritocracy so the idea that someone should be on our currency by birthright is irreconcilable, as is the notion that they should be our head of state by birthright,” Australian Republic Movement chairman Craig Foster said.
“To think that an unelected king should be on our currency in place of First Nations leaders and elders and eminent Australians is no longer justifiable at a time of truth-telling, reconciliation and ultimately formal, cultural and intellectual independence,” he said.
The Australian Monarchist League said the decision was “virtually neo-communism in action.”
“Before a referendum is held on whether the people want to retain the King as sovereign or opt for a President, this government has arbitrarily moved to discard the King’s head from Australia’s five dollar note,” the group said in a statement. “It is certainly not Australian democracy.”
A British monarch has featured on Australian banknotes since 1923 and was on all paper bills until 1953, the year of Elizabeth II’s coronation.
The queen’s face adorned the 1 Australian pound banknote and, after the adoption of the Australian dollar in 1966, the A$1 note.
That first A$1 banknote also included imagery of Aboriginal rock paintings and carvings based on a bark painting by indigenous artist David Malangi Daymirringu.
The queen’s face has peered up at Australians from the polymer A$5 note since 1992.
However, central bank Governor Philip Lowe last year announced that the bank had begun talking with the Albanese administration about whether to forgo replacing the queen’s image with a portrait of King Charles III.
The bank has made no mention of any plans to remove the monarch’s image from Australian coins.
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