A banknote only a mother could love

The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) presented the new design on Tuesday and said that the new banknote would enter circulation from September 1.

The banknote will feature new security measures, including a new distinctive top-to-bottom window, the RBA said.

"Innovative new security features have been incorporated to help keep Australia's banknotes secure from counterfeiting into the future," said RBA Governor Glenn Stevens.

In addition to its security features, the new note will include a tactile element to help vision-impaired people distinguish between the different denominations of banknotes.

The new note, which will have the same dimensions as the old one, features a yellow Prickly Moses wattle flower, a colourful Eastern Spinebill native bird and a portrait of Queen Elizabeth updated from the previous banknote design unveiled in 1995.

Criticism

"Each banknote in the new series will depict a different species of Australian wattle and a native bird within a number of the elements," Governor Stevens said in a statement.

"The designs are the culmination of a process of extensive consultation with subject-matter experts and the cash-handling industry, as well as qualitative research involving focus groups."

However, critics lashed out at the new design on social media, calling it "hideous" and "like vomit."

"Our new fivers look like vomit," one user wrote on Twitter.

Some questioned why the same portrait of Queen Elizabeth II, which was drawn from photographs commissioned by the central bank in 1984, was used rather than a recent image of Australia's head of state.

The new bill is being introduced to mark the 50th anniversary of the nation's conversion to decimal currency.

sri/cjc (AFP, Reuters)