Why do Australia and New Zealand have the Dollar and not the Pound?

I can somewhat understand why Canada has the dollar - but not Australia and New Zealand.

Also, do Australia and New Zealand have Queen Elizabeth II's portrait on all their currency like Canada does?

Re: Why do Australia and New Zealand have the Dollar and not the Pound?

Australia & New Zealand used the Pound Sterling until approximately 1932, when the world economic situation created currency arbitrage between Great Britain and the dominions. At that time a separate sterling-system coinage, such as already existed for Australia, was created in New Zealand. In the 1960s there was pressure for decimalization of currency systems. In Australia & New Zealand, the pound-shilling-pence system was replaced with a dollar-cent system, each dollar being equivalent to 10 shillings of the former currency, that is, one pound equalled two dollars. New Zealand 10¢ coins, in fact, for some years also carried the inscription "One Shilling", & the old coins continued to circulate for some time. With the exchange rate at the time, $1 AU or NZ (they tend to be roughly the same) equalled about $1.25 US. Today they are closer to 50¢ US. This is in contrast to the change in Great Britain, where the pound unit was retained, but divided into 100 new pence.

I have in my collection currency and coinage of Australia & New Zealand under both systems. The royal portrait appears uniformly on the coins, but generally does not appear on the paper money. This is not at all unusual — British paper money did not even carry portraits until quite recently, while Canadian paper (which tended to follow the US pattern) carried images of various people, including but not restricted to the reigning monarch.

Re: Why do Australia and New Zealand have the Dollar and not the Pound?

The Australian 5$ note has the Queen on one side and the Australian Parliament on the other--not too surprising as the Queen is Head of State. The other portraits on the notes are all of Aussies. I don't recall who is on the Kiwi notes.

Re: Why do Australia and New Zealand have the Dollar and not the Pound?

The Queen appears on our $20 bill. Other famous Kiwis show up on the rest.

Re: Why do Australia and New Zealand have the Dollar and not the Pound?

As a boy in England in the late 70s, I recall old schilling coins still being circulated, and were considered to be worth 5 pence. Similiarly, two schilling coins were worth 10 pence.

From Wikipedia:-
List of circulating currencies - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
it seems only present-day UK colonies or dependencies still call their currency a 'pound'. Most ex-colonies have moved away from naming their currency a 'pound', e.g. Singapore also has a 'dollar'.

One oddity I noticed is that the Netherlands Antilles still have their own 'guilden', but the Dutch themselves no longer do, having moved to the Euro.


I dunno about back then, but I'm sure today AU$1 is about US$1 -- both are worth around S$1.35 to 1.37 these days. It wasn't too long ago, though, that US$1 was worth nearly S$1.8; going back further, when I first visited Australia in 1992, AU$1 was only S$0.95... If memory serves, the US$ back then would have been closer to S$2, so perhaps you're just 15 years off

Shows just how much the Aussie dollar has appreciated over the years, I guess. And the Kiwi with it -- just 5 years ago, NZ$1 was around S$0.7-0.8, today it is S$1.15.

Which is why in the last two years, my long annual vacation was in the US, and this year it will be as well...

Re: Why do Australia and New Zealand have the Dollar and not the Pound?

Blimey, that takes me back! I haven't seen a shilling or florin (2 shilling coin) in circulation in years, but quite right, they had values of 5p and 10p in the new system. Gradually these coins got withdrawn from circulation, but as far as I know, they're still legal tender.

I think several years ago I posted this valuable information for any time travellers hoping to fit in with pre-1971 Britain, but at the risk of repeating myself:

The old UK system consisted of 12 pence = 1 shilling; 20 shillings = 1 pound, and 21 shillings = 1 guinea. Coins were: the farthing (1/4 pence); halfpence, penny, threepence [pronounced 'thre'punny bit'], sixpence, shilling, florin (2 shillings); half crown (2 shillings and sixpence). There was a banknote for 10 shillings, and thereafter everything was notes. No longer in circulation were the crown (5 shillings), the half sovereign and sovereign (worth 10 shillings and 1 pound respectively, and made of gold). The crown was occasionally issued as a commemorative coin (e.g. on the death of Winston Churchill) but these rarely entered circulation.

The modern coinage originally consisted of the 1/2 pence, 1 pence, 2 pence, 5 pence and 10 pence. Then the 50p coin replaced the old 10 shilling note, and then the 1 pound coin replaced the 1 pound note. We now also have a 2 pound coin, made of two different metals, which is something of a curiosity. Over the years the 50 pence coin has changed size and weight, ditto the 5 and 10 pence coins. The 1/2 pence coin disappeared some years ago as nothing now costs 1/2 pence.

The florin was an interesting coin, as it was issued as a prelude to the introduction of a decimalised (i.e. 100 pence to the pound) system. This was in the 1880s. It took until 1971 for the new system to be introduced. Never let it be said that we Brits rush into things.

Going back to the original question, I think the whole issue reflects the change in status of the former UK colonies to equal partners in the Commonwealth rather than subject nations. You can see a similar thing in stamps. Go back sixty or so years, and all the British Commonwealth stamps had the Brit monarch's face one them - now it's rarely seen. Even in the UK, except on our definitive stamps (i.e. the 'ordinary' ones rather than commemoratives) the Queen's portrait has been reduced to a silhouette of Her Majesty's head in profile, taken from a photo taken in her twenties. And for a piece of real trivia - only British stamps have the name of the country of issue missing from them (this is in recognition of the fact that the UK invented the modern postal system). A tiny fact, but it does confer a great advantage to graphic artists designing Brit stamps as they have less lettering that 'must' appear on the stamp design.

Re: Why do Australia and New Zealand have the Dollar and not the Pound?

Wasn't that called a ha'penny?


So the Brits are to blame for "going postal"?

Re: Why do Australia and New Zealand have the Dollar and not the Pound?

It certainly was. I didn't want to overload you with slang in the first post, but in addition, a sixpence was a tanner and a shilling was a bob.

Nope - the phrase derives from the USA and well-publicised tales of ex-postmen shooting colleagues. Brit postmen are generally seen as placid, cheerful and efficient. There's the occasional story of postmen stealing valuable mail, but it's rare and doesn't detract from the fact that in general the 'posties' are well liked in the UK.

Re: Why do Australia and New Zealand have the Dollar and not the Pound?

Was that the standard bribe for a bobbie?

I miss all those old terms like tuppance and thruppance.....

Isn't a quid the same as a shilling?

It would be interesting to see whether a "tanner" was named after William the Conqueror.

Re: Why do Australia and New Zealand have the Dollar and not the Pound?

No, a quid was a pound (still is). To give you some of the others:

nicker - also means a pound
pony - 25 pounds
monkey - 500 pounds
tenner - 10 pounds

And I forgot to mention that we also used to have a coin called a groat, worth four pence.

Re: Why do Australia and New Zealand have the Dollar and not the Pound?

We're not that creative with our money unless you count the futile attempts to circulate $1 coins every few years.

Re: Why do Australia and New Zealand have the Dollar and not the Pound?

Nicker = pound currency = lady's undies. Will I EVER understand the English language?

Re: Why do Australia and New Zealand have the Dollar and not the Pound?

I actually do remember individual sweets being sold at half-pence each, or two for a penny at the tuckshop.

Similarly, in football (soccer to you Yanks) all domestic associations carry the name of the country they are from (e.g. Football Association of Singapore, Scottish Football Association, Deutsche Fussball Bund), EXCEPT England's, which is simply called "The Football Association", again in recognition that it was the first.

Of course, that means that the common phrases "The F.A. knows F.A." or "The F.A. does sweet F.A." have a nice ring to them...

Re: Why do Australia and New Zealand have the Dollar and not the Pound?

No, that's knickers you're thinking of. Can also be used as a relatively mild swear word. And really to confuse you, a 'nicker' can also be someone who steals things (in the same way 'someone nicked my car' in British slang means the car was stolen, not marked with a notch).

Savvy?