Australia converted to decimal currency on 14 February – Valentine's Day – 1966. 

There was a huge public education campaign in the year leading up to the change. Arguably the most well-loved piece of publicity is the musical animated short featuring Dollar Bill.

Taking advantage of the natural rhyme of ‘pounds, shillings and pence’ becoming ‘dollars and cents’, composer Ted Roberts wrote a jingle to the tune of the folk song ‘Click go the shears’.

After being shown on television night after night from April 1965 until the beginning of change-over in February 1966, the catchy song was well known by Australians. In September 1965 the Decimal Currency Board reported receiving 500 fan letters from children for Dollar Bill.

The identity of the actor who voiced Dollar Bill was kept secret, but today we know he was voiced by actor, comedian and newsreel narrator Kevin Golsby (Division 4, Kingswood Country and Marco Polo Junior Versus The Red Dragon). Actor and voice-over narrator Ross Higgins (Kingswood Country, The Naked Vicar Show and Richmond Hill) voiced the man instructed by Dollar Bill.

The short was produced in colour but it screened in black-and-white on television because colour television didn’t arrive on Australian screens until 1975.

Holla for a dollar

A 20-year-old Ian ‘Turps’ Turpie at the beginning of his career sings his hit ‘The Decimal Point Song’. Turpie looks awkward at times as he mimes the catchy tune to camera and dances self-consciously. Released by Festival Records, the words were written to explain the conversion of pounds, shillings and pence to dollars and cents by Herman Glick. The song was arranged by Vernon Moore.

The hope was that Australians would be humming the song come change-over day:

Let’s hear everybody holla!

Ten bob’s a dollar!

So easy to follow!

Get with it, Gran!

These three television advertisements feature a grandmother and her burgeoning knowledge of decimal currency conversion. The catch phrase is ‘Get with it’.

The third ad features yet another song about currency conversion.

Dollar note bark painting

The story of Yolngu artist David Malangi and how one of his works was used as the design for the new Australian Dollar Bill that was introduced with decimal currency in February 1966. The artwork depicts the ‘mortuary feast’ of one of the artist’s creation ancestors, Gunmirringu, the great ancestral hunter. The Manharrngu people attribute this story as the origin of their mortuary rites.

Note: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander viewers are advised that this page may contain images of deceased persons.

Designing for decimal

Below, Treasurer Harold Holt and Hal Missingham, Director of the Art Gallery of NSW, introduce the designs for the new decimal currency. By the time change-over day came Holt was prime minister.

We see the process of Stuart Devlin designing the reverse (or tail) of the new coins featuring iconic Australian animals: kangaroo, emu, platypus, lyrebird, spiny anteater (echidna), frilled-neck lizard and the feathertail glider.

There have been various changes to Australian currency since 1966. The round 50 cent piece design and metal composition was changed to the 12-sided (dodecagon) design we have today in 1969. In 1984 one dollar notes were replaced by one dollar coins with a reverse design featuring five kangaroos. Two dollar notes were replaced by two dollar coins with a reverse design featuring an Aboriginal elder in 1988. One and two cent coins were withdrawn from circulation in 1992. Paper banknotes were replaced with Australian-designed polymer banknotes one denomination at a time from 1992-96.

Change-over day arrives

This mostly silent footage from Melbourne’s Eyewitness News, Melbourne shows scenes of change-over day including people getting change in shiny decimal currency, new bank notes and scenes from a bank.

Making a mint

This documentary from 1988 about the Royal Australian Mint in Canberra shows the history of currency in Australia from the holey dollar to the solid gold kangaroo coin and decimal currency.

Clink go the cents

Full lyrics for the song Dollar Bill sings:

In come the dollars and in come the cents

to replace the pounds and the shillings and the pence.

Be prepared folks when the coins begin to mix

on the 14th of February 1966.

Clink go the cents folks

clink, clink, clink. Change-over day is closer than you think.

Learn the value of the coins and the way that they appear

and things will be much smoother when the decimal point is here.

In come the dollars and in come the cents

to replace the pounds and the shillings and the pence.

Be prepared folks when the coins begin to mix

on the 14th of February 1966.

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