The launch of Australia’s new $5 banknote has been welcomed by members of the vision-impaired community and wattle enthusiasts.
The updated bill, which the Reserve Bank of Australia announced earlier this year, entered circulation on Thursday, coinciding with National Wattle Day and the start of spring.
It is the first banknote in the history of Australian currency to include a tactile feature – a raised bump on each of its long edges – to support the nearly 360,000 community members who are blind or have limited vision.
Bruce Maguire, policy advisor of Vision Australia, said it was a “significant win” for inclusiveness.
Australia's new $5 banknote enters circulation today - the first to include tactile markings for vision-impaired pic.twitter.com/CUrYrLl1pE
— Pete Wargent (@PeteWargent) August 31, 2016
Research conducted by the organisation found that 61% of Australians who are totally blind have difficulty differentiating between denominations, while nearly half did not receive the right change on occasion.
In 2014, Vision Australia backed a complaint to the Australian Human Rights Commission over the inaccessibility of the notes, led by Sydney teenager Connor McLeod, who is blind. His campaign began when he could not tell how much cash he had been given for Christmas.
With his mother, Ally Lancaster, McLeod launched a Change.org petition that led to more than 57,000 signatures calling for tactile features on Australian currency being presented to the government.
The RBA confirmed that new notes would be designed with accessibility in mind in February last year.
The new note has also been welcomed by the Wattle Day Association, which aims to recognise wattle as a national emblem of Australia – and proposes 1 September as “the new Australia Day”.
The Prickly Moses wattle features prominently on the bill, bordering a top-to-bottom clear window on both sides, and were initially mistaken for microbes and ears of corn when the design was first publicised in mid-April.
The Wattle Day Association praised the new design as “another step on wattle’s long road to recognition in our national life”. There is wattle in bloom somewhere around the country every day of the year, it said in a press release: “Now, every day, it will also be in our hands and our pockets”.
It has now set its sights on a wattle flag for Australia, which it says is “gaining support”.
The Eastern Spinebill bird, a youthful Queen Elizabeth II, the Federation Pavilion, and New Parliament House with the Forecourt Mosaic also appear on the note.
The $5 is the first denomination in the new “Next Generation” banknote series, with the next to be updated the $10 next year. All new designs will feature a different kind of wattle.
The existing $5 banknote will be progressively withdrawn from circulation but can continue to be used.
