Australian $2 coin set to be issued soon

Press, 2 December 1987, Page 51

Australian $2 coin set to be issued soon

NZPA Sydney Australians, who have had $1 coins jangling in their pockets for nearly four years, will next year have a $2 coin added to their change. Production of the new $2 coins has already started at the Royal Australian Mint in Canberra and is expected to contribute hundreds of millions of dollars a year to federal coffers. The excessive cost of keeping crisp $1 notes in circulation resulted in the SAustl coin being introduced in 1984 and, according to the Royal Australian Mint, it was accepted with few complaints from the public. The average life of the $2 note is six months, whereas the average circulating life of a coin can be 40 years or more. “Since the cost of producing and issuing a coin is the same as that for a

note, the introduction of higher denomination coins can result in considerable cost savings to the Government and hence, taxpayers generally,” said the Federal Treasurer, Mr Paul Keating, in selling the $2 coin to the public. The Royal Australian Mint has budgeted to boost its contribution to Government revenue this financial year by sAust2os million ($228 million) from last year’s sAust7 million ($7.8 million), largely because of the new coin’s introduction. When the coin is introduced in the latter half of the financial year, its money-earning potential can expected to be much greater for a full year. Interestingly, with the $2 coin’s introduction coinciding with the Australian Bicentenary and with Aboriginals threatening to break up the party atmosphere with protests, the Government decided

to restore Aboriginal culture to Australia’s currency.

The Aboriginal theme disappeared with the old $1 note, but returns on the $2 coin with the head and shoulders of a traditional Aboriginal set against a background comprising the Southern Cross and Australian flora.

The acting controller of the Royal Australian Mint, Mr Edward Wilson, said the level of complaints when the sAustl coin was introduced was not very high.

“People have to look at the size of a different coin and get that into their consciousness. That was necessary with the $1 coin when it was issued, but some people felt they should not need to do that,” he told NZPA.

“The level of correspondence was barely significant and I expect some correspondence on the introduction of the

new coin. It’s very difficult to satisfy everybody’s perceptions about what it should be.” The new $2 coin is being minted from the same aluminium-bronze alloy as the sAustl coin, making them readily distinguishable from the lower value coins.

Mr Wilson said he knew of no plans in Australia to do away with Ic, 2c and 5c coins, as has been proposed in New Zealand. But as someone “taught to learn the value” of money, he was disturbed to see people throwing away 1c coins or not bothering to pick up dropped coins. “We have been minting large numbers of 1c coins this year and I notice, when I’m walking around shopping centres, that they are just discarded,” he said.

“I don’t like seeing that because we go to a lot of trouble minting them.”