This Valentine’s Day marks the 50th anniversary of decimal currency in Australia

Valentine’s Day is a time to celebrate romance, but in 1966 Australia started a new relationship with dollars and cents after breaking up with pounds, shillings and pence.

While this Sunday millions of Australians will be celebrating romance on St Valentine’s Day, many people will also be thinking about the time, 50 years ago, when we broke up with Pounds, Shillings and Pence and started going around with Dollars and Cents.

Some people were smitten, while others took longer to warm to the new currency. Some never did.

Dire predictions of fiscal collapse, retail confusion and rampant profiteering never came true, and Australia finally shrugged off the British money to introduce the dollar on the February 14, 1966.

It had been a long time coming. A Decimal Currency Select Committee sat from 1901 to 1904 and recommended a new currency based on sovereigns of 1000 cents worth 10 florins. A florin would be equivalent to 25 cents. Despite support from some sectors, including the Australian Chambers of Commerce, it was decided that going decimal would put us at odds with Britain, where recent proposals for decimalisation had also been rejected.

By the 1950s, as more countries worldwide adopted decimal currencies, Australia began to accept that changing to decimal was looking inevitable. However there were still those who were unconvinced, complaining of the expense and the potential for chaos.

A still from a commercial featuring the character Dollar Bill, preparing Australians for the 1966 introduction of decimal currency.

A Decimal Currency Committee was set up in February 1959, reporting in August 1960 that “the savings in time and effort would outweigh the cost and inconvenience of the change.” They recommended a system based on a 100 cent unit, with a 20 cent coin worth two shillings and one cent worth 1.2 pence.

The committee recommended implementation as soon as February 1963. However, there would be various delays, some due to political resistance to dropping the Queen’s money. But Federal Treasurer Harold Holt explained to the public that there were also practical matters to be ironed out such as allowing accountancy firms time to change their machines and modifications at the mint to deal with a new alloy for coins.

Cabinet finally agreed to go to decimal on April 2, 1963, fixing the date for February 1966 and Holt announced it to the public on April 7. A Decimal Currency Board was established under Dr Neil Davey, who was dubbed “Mr Decimal”. The board determined the government would pay some of the cost of altering vending machines, accounting devices, cash registers and other technology to help the change.

Various names were considered. Prime Minister Robert Menzies liked the “Royal” but one of the frontrunners in a public competition was the “Austral”, rejected by Holt because “14 Australs” would sound like “forty nostrils”. As cabinet planned to go with “Royal”, Holt’s wife received death threats and a Telegraph poll showed 95 per cent of people favouring the name “dollar”.

Cabinet relented and went with dollar.

Stuart Devlin designed the coins for our decimal currency. He has since designed coins for 30 different countries.

Six designers were commissioned to take part in a restricted competition to prepare alternative designs for the new currency from which two winners were chosen. The coins were designed by Stuart Devlin, an up-and-coming artist who would later go on to design coins for more than 30 other countries and become official goldsmith to the Queen. The notes were the creation of Gordon Andrews, already well known for his tourism posters, his furniture and even cookware for David Jones.

To educate the public about the advantages of the new currency, an advertising campaign featuring the cartoon character Dollar Bill was created, singing a jingle to the tune of Click Go the Shears.

Gordon Andrews, designer of decimal currency banknotes.

Three weeks before the new currency’s introduction, Menzies resigned after 18 years in the job, leaving Holt to usher in the new era. The mint was working overtime to create a stockpile of coins to enable banks, businesses and ordinary people to begin using them from day one.

The government spent time planning “Operation Fastbuck”, the huge logistics operation to deliver the new money on time. Specially modified train cars carried currency to major centres where they were met by trucks and armoured cars, driven by hand-picked drivers accompanied by police armed with machineguns. Banks closed early on February 9, 1966, to prepare for the onslaught of Monday’s “C-Day.” On Valentine’s Day banks urged people not to rush their doors to change their money and the changeover proceeded mostly in an orderly fashion. Some tellers kept firearms nearby in case robbers saw it as an opportunity. Despite some confusion the decimal changeover proved to be a huge success.