DECIMAL CONVERSION TROUBLES BUSINESSMEN

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30725, 14 April 1965, Page 17

DECIMAL CONVERSION TROUBLES BUSINESSMEN

(From GRAEME JENKINS, N.Z.P.A. Special Correspondent) SYDNEY, April 13. There were some red faces in Sydney in the last week. They belonged to members of the city’s top management groups who discovered to their acute embarrassment that their knowledge of decimals and Australia’s new currency system was well behind scratch.

During a special course held for the heads of business only a small proportion of those attending managed to get more than a 50 per cent pass.) The massive educational i

programme to precede the change-over to decimal currency which comes into effect on February 14 next year has not yet gathered full momentum, but the results achieved by the Sydney group showed just how much is to be learned in the next 11 months. The decimal currency board which is responsible for the new monetary system’s introduction, has its plan of campaign mapped out in great detail and will soon be starting its major moves in the educational programme.

Anticipating the board by some time, several of Sydney's main retailers are already marking their wares in dollars and cents as well as in pounds, shillings and pence, while one chain store for some time has been running a decimal currency telephone quiz in which housewives are

asked to give decimal equivalents for present-day money. Within the next few months the board is expected to announce its plans for the conversion of business machines to the new currency. With roughly half a million machines to be converted, the change-over obviously is going to take some time. In order to create as little upset ’as possible, the board will divide the country into a series of decimal currency zones and will carry out its machine conversion zone by zone.

Until the zone boundaries are announced, businesses within the zones will be unable to complete their own change-over plans. The machines to be converted include adding machines, cash registers, and accounting equipment

Highest priority in the zoning system is likely to . be given to the business hearts of the capital cities, with smaller businesses in country areas at the other end of the scale. Much of the money needed to finance the change-over of the machines to decimals will be provided by the Government in the form of a subsidy depending on the age of the machines. Many of the larger business organisations, including banks and insurance companies, have training programmes for their staffs at an advanced stage, with some having decimal currency committees operating whose job it is to study any problems Which might be peculiar to the company in question and to find solutions for them. One of the majpr problems

in the change-over will be the translation of various award conditions and payments to the new system.

In many awards now current, hourly rates are set at so many shillings, pence and fractions of a penny. The exact equivalent in many cases is impossible to determine except by going to five or six places of decimals. Consultations among employers, trade union officials and industrial authorities are at present being held to try and determine new pay rates, still based on the current awards, which will be advantageous to neither employer nor worker.

The hoped-for outcome is an agreement by all parties which will allow an application to be made to seek a blanket alteration to all awards and agreements.

At present there are about 250 Federal awards and well over 1000 on a country-wide basis. In New South Wales alone there are more than 800 current awards and agreements. One award recently granted foresaw the difficulties ahead and provided the pay rates and allowances in both £ s. d. and the decimal equivalent. Another of course will be the new pricing for the thousands of grocery lines available. Hundreds of items are priced in halfpennies and what to do about them is a problem in itself. The halfpennies add up to big money and the question of which side is to get the benefit—the shopkeeper or the customer—is one that finally could cause the biggest single headache of the new system.