TIMELINE: 1971–1990
What was happening to?
Australia's Currency Notes
Inflation becomes a major problem, requiring the issue of larger-value decimal currency notes.
Polymer currency note technology is developed.
Australia's Economy and Society
Australia experiences substantial economic and social change and celebrates the Bicentenary of the First Settlement.
Australia breaks the fixed link of the $A to the $US.
Women receive equal pay.
A $50 decimal currency note is issued.
Patrick White becomes the first Australian to win the Nobel Prize for
literature.
The Sydney Opera House is opened.
The Bankcard (credit card) system is introduced.
The $A is devalued by 17.6 per cent and Australia moves to arrangements for adjustment of the exchange rate against a trade-weighted currency basket.
Australia wins the Centenary cricket test in Melbourne by the same margin (45 runs) as in 1877.
Australia's economic performance deteriorates through the 1970s; inflation and unemployment both rise (stagflation) and economic growth is modest.
Automatic Teller Machines (ATMs) are introduced.
Note printing operations are moved from Fitzroy to Craigieburn, Victoria.
Australia's population reaches 15 million.
The $A is floated and exchange controls abolished.
The decision to replace the $1 note by a $1 coin is announced with the new coin issued in 1984.
A $100 decimal currency note is issued.
The 1980s sees extensive deregulation of the Australian financial system.
The first of 16 foreign banks granted a banking licence by the Government opens in Australia.
Share prices suffer a record fall in October in the worst crash since 1929.
The first currency note - $10 - using new polymer technology developed by the RBA and the CSIRO is issued. It commemorates the Bicentenary of the First Settlement.
The $2 note is replaced by a $2 coin.
Australia celebrates the Bicentenary of the First Settlement.
The new Parliament House, Canberra, is opened.
Note Printing Branch becomes a self-sufficient business enterprise called Note Printing Australia (NPA).
NPA secures its first export order, for a commemorative polymer note, from Singapore.
