Treasurer Jim Chalmers’ shock call on Australian $5 note

Treasurer Jim Chalmers has weighed in on the growing debate about who should be on Australia’s $5 note. Have your say in our poll.

Aussies could soon be tasked with choosing the new face of the $5 note as King Charles settles into life as the new monarch.

Australians should be consulted on who will appear on future five dollar notes, with King Charles III not necessarily the automatic choice, according to Treasurer Jim Chalmers.

Mr Chalmers weighed in on the growing debate about who should replace Queen Elizabeth II on the $5 note on Wednesday, suggesting her successor in the monarchy was not necessarily locked into the position.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers says Aussies should get to say what replaces the Queen on the $5 note. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

“My personal view is that it shouldn’t be beyond us to consider and to consult on the best way to change the $5 note when that’s necessary,” he said.

“I don’t see a massive rush to change the $5 note, but nor do I think it should be especially controversial for a country like ours to consult on what we want to do.”

There have been calls for the $5 note to feature a prominent Australian instead of the new monarch, but no firm alternative or process for choosing an image has been discussed at this time.

Mr Chalmers said this week he had “preliminary” talks with Reserve Bank of Australia Governor Philip Lowe about the process to replace the Queen, noting the UK was not expecting to produce notes with King Charles until 2024.

“We will take the necessary time to consult and consider, and we will make our position due course,” he said.

KING, QUEEN CONSORT SPOTTED

King Charles and Queen Consort, Camilla, have been seen in public for the first time since Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral on Monday.

The new monarch, 73, was photographed near Balmoral Estate in Scotland on Sunday afternoon local time dressed in black, in keeping with royal tradition for the period of mourning.

Camilla also kept a largely black outfit but appeared to have a tartan skirt on.

The couple attended a service at the nearby Crathie Kirk church, according to the Daily Mail, suggesting they are staying at Balmoral. The royal family regularly visit the church when they are staying at Balmoral.

King Charles and Queen Consort, Camilla, driven into Balmoral Estate in Scotland. Picture: Reuters

It comes a royal expert claims the king “hasn’t decided” on what titles Prince Harry’s children will be granted.

According to Roya Nikkhah, royal editor for The Times, the delay is “heightening tensions” between the new king and the Sussexes.

As the grandchildren of the monarch, the pair were expected to automatically receive prince and princess titles – but this remains up in the air following ‘Megxit’.

According to The Sun, the children are currently listed on the line of succession, published online, without titles.

King Charles III follows behind the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II, draped in the Royal Standard with the Imperial State Crown and the Sovereign's orb and sceptre. Picture: Getty Images

The King’s spokesman said earlier this month that the document would be updated “as and when we get information”.

And Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are, according to Nikkah, “understood to fear the King may strip Archie and Lilibet of their titles, after his reluctance immediately to recognise their elevated status after the Queen’s death.”

Royal expert Katie Nicholl also chimed in on the debate, telling True Royalty TV that the matter of titles depended on the relationship between the couple and the Firm.

She said: “And I’m told that that is a very clear signal from the King. He’s willing to give those titles, but it comes with a caveat, and that caveat is trust.

“They have to know that they can trust the [Sussex] family.”

Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, and King Charles III. Picture: AFP

It has been reported that the contents of Prince Harry’s upcoming book are key to whether or not the family will reconcile.

Prince Harry delayed his memoir, which was due to be published in December, after the late Queen’s death.

It is now expected to be published in the new year, according to sources.

The tell-all book has already caused friction among the royal family after palace officials were apparently blindsided by the announcement that it would be published.

Also important is the content of the Netflix series about Prince Harry and wife Markle, that will apparently tell their “love story”.

The death of Queen Elizabeth II prompted a flood of tributes from many but Britain’s black community have largely been unresponsive. Picture: Getty Images

It comes as Queen Elizabeth II’s death earlier this month prompted a flood of tributes – but not from everyone.

In Britain’s black community, many asked: what had she ever done for us?

The question gave her eldest son and successor, Charles III, an early taste of what he will have to confront as king, with feelings still running high about the toxic legacy of Britain’s colonial past.

At her death, the Queen was head of state of 14 countries outside Britain, including nations in the Caribbean exploited by the slave trade.

Charles immediately succeeded his mother as their distant head of state but the question of for how long is increasingly being discussed as republican movements gather pace.

Kehinde Andrews, professor of black studies at the University of Birmingham, wrote the day after the Queen’s death on September 8 that he did not share the country’s loss.

“For the children of the British Empire, those of us who were born here and those of us who were born in the 15 nations of the ‘commonwealth’, the Queen is the number one symbol of white supremacy.

“She may have been seen as an institution but for us, she was the manifestation of the institutional racism that we have to encounter daily,” he wrote on the Politico website.

Charles and Camilla play the bongo drums as they join a group of musicians at Bob Marley's former home, now a museum, in Kingston, Jamaica. Picture: Anwar Hussein/WireImage

ROYAL RACIST DEBATE RAGES ON

Many black Britons no longer want to stay silent about the racism that they see as rooted at the heart of many British institutions.

The subject came to fore in Black Lives Matter anti-racism protests, which saw calls for statues of historical figures linked to slavery to be torn down.

During the national mourning period which ended with the queen’s funeral on September 19, protests were held about the death of Chris Kaba, an unarmed black man who was shot dead by police in London.

The monarchy itself had previously been drawn into the debate when Prince Harry and Meghan Markle accused the royal family of racism.

Meghan Markle accused the royal family of being racist. Picture: Victoria Jones

That claim saw the Queen promise to investigate but prompted an outright rejection from Prince Harry’s brother, Prince William.

“We are very much not a racist family,” he told reporters.

Unresolved questions about race and colonialism are all the more significant as Charles succeeds his mother as head of the 56-nation Commonwealth group of nations.

Many members are former British colonies, while most of the body’s 2.6 billion people are not white and most are aged under 30.

David Olusoga, author of Black and British: A Forgotten History, said there had been a “mass awakening to the realities and legacies of imperialism and slavery” in the Commonwealth but Buckingham Palace had failed to recognise or understand the “shift of consciousness”.

He highlighted Prince William and his wife Kate’s Caribbean tour earlier this year, which was widely criticised as smacking of colonialism.

Kate Middleton and Prince William during the inaugural Commissioning Parade for service personnel from across the Caribbean. Picture: Getty Images

Prince William also faced calls to apologise for slavery and for the monarchy to pay reparations.

“Historians might well look back at that tour as the first portent of the age in which we now find ourselves: the post-Elizabethan age,” Olusoga said.

Since then, Prince William has praised the “immense contribution” of the “Windrush” generation of Caribbean migrants, who came to Britain after World War II to help the country rebuild.

Despite arriving legally, many found themselves later wrongly detained and even deported under the government’s hardline immigration policies.

Ashok Viswanathan, deputy director of Operation Black Vote, said Charles’s record, via his Prince’s Trust charity, of working with disadvantaged young people and the black community “speaks for itself”.

But he said that to convince black Britons and especially the young, “he will have to foster that relationship in his new role”.

King Charles, when he was the Prince of Wales and working for the Prince’s Trust. Picture: Getty Images

Charles is said to have been working behind the scenes to counter discrimination.

In early September, before he became king, he was invited to guest-edit The Voice, a newspaper for the African-Caribbean community.

But not all readers were happy, given the continued lack of apology for slavery, including from the royal family, the monthly’s editor, Lester Holloway, said.

He told the BBC: “We agreed to collaborate with the Prince of Wales after looking at the work he had done on race equality over 40 years and the parallels with our campaigning over the same period.”

– additional reporting AFP