5 Dollars 2001, Australia
| in Krause book | Number: 56 |
| Years of issue: | 01.01.2001 |
| Edition: | |
| Signatures: | Governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia: Mr. Ian John Macfarlane (September 1996 - September 2006), Secretary to the Treasury: Mr. Ted Evans (24 May 1993 - 26 April 2001) |
| Serie: | Commemorative issue |
| Specimen of: | 2000 |
| Material: | Polymer |
| Size (mm): | 135 x 65 |
| Printer: | Note Printing Australia, Craigieburn, Melbourne |
* All pictures marked 
are increased partially by magnifying glass, the remaining open in full size by clicking on the image.
** The word "Specimen" is present only on some of electronic pictures, in accordance with banknote images publication rules of appropriate banks.
Description
Watermark:
The prototype for the banknotes, probably, was a portrait of Sir Henry Parkes by Tom Roberts in 1892.
It is known from their letters that Tom Roberts and Sir Henry Parkes were friends, and corresponded with each other over many years.
Tom Roberts portrait, conveys his knowledge of Parkes, who was described by Alfred Deakin, as "though not rich or versatile, his personality was massive, durable and imposing, resting upon elementary qualities of human nature elevated by a strong mind".
In his portrait of Sir Henry Parkes, Roberts has captured the strength of personality possessed by Parkes, with his piercing gaze, and white hair and beard which reflects his age and wisdom, and conveys that feeling that here is a patriarch. This was very much befitting his recognized station as the "Father of Federation".
Avers:
Sir Henry Parkes (May 27, 1815 - April 27, 1896), a dominant political figure in Australia during the second half of the XIX century, often called the father of Australian federation. He served five terms as premier of New South Wales between 1872 and 1891.
Parkes became politically prominent in 1849 as a spokesman for ending the transportation of convicts to Australia from England. The following year he launched the Empire, a newspaper he ran until 1858 and through which he campaigned for fully representative government. He first held public office in 1854 and served almost without interruption as a representative and often as a minister or premier until 1894.
Parkes’s educational work resulted in the Public Schools Act of 1866 and the Public Instruction Act of 1880, which introduced compulsory free education and severed connections between the church and the public schools. In his ministries between 1872 and 1887 he established New South Wales as a free-trade colony. He was knighted in 1877. In his fourth administration (1887-89) he carried through measures to improve railways and public works and to limit Chinese immigration.
Parkes first spoke for federation in 1867 and later presided over the National Australasian Convention in 1891. He withdrew support from the resulting Commonwealth of Australia Bill, however, and federation was postponed until 1901. After the elections of 1891 Parkes lost his position of political leadership. His autobiography, Fifty Years in the Making of Australian History, appeared in 1892. (Britannica)
Left of Sir Parkes portrait is Tenterfield School of Arts.
Recognition of the national significance of the Sir Henry Parkes Memorial School of Arts has elevated the building and its museum collection to a national mecca in the Australian federation story.
It was here that the "Father of Federation", Sir Henry Parkes G.C.M.G. took his Federation call to the people during a public address on October 24, 1889. The speech was widely taken to be a direct appeal to the people to prepare for a federal constitution-making convention.
As Premier of New South Wales, Parkes had been to Brisbane for talks on the federation issue with his parliamentary counterparts. He broke his return journey at Tenterfield to tell the people "the time was close at hand when they ought to set about creating a great national government for all Australian's".
Next day, from his room at the Commercial Hotel, just a block away from the School of Arts, Parkes wrote to the NSW Governor, Lord Carrington: "After what had taken place in Brisbane, I thought it best to take our own people into my confidence at the banquet here last night”.
On many occasions and at many venues around Australia, tributes are paid to Sir Henry Parkes. But no place nor tribute could be more appropriate than Tenterfield's School of Arts (founded 1865) which stands as a national memorial to this great Australian statesman.
Apart from the dramatic significance of the 1889 Tenterfield speech itself ... the REAL intrigue is that it took place ... NOT in a town hall or a park, or a railway station or a theatre...BUT in a School of Arts. The School of Arts phenomena in Australia was based on the aims and operation to the Birmingham Mechanic's Institute in England where Parkes had obtained much of his own education and shaped his political and social philosophy.
As a nationally recognized federation place, the School of Arts is a fitting memorial to Sir Henry Parkes who was five times premier of NSW and the Member for Tenterfield in 1882-1884. Acquired by the National Trust of Australia (NSW) in 1957 under an Act of the NSW Parliament, the building was the first to come under the ownership of the Trust. It is also classified on the registers of the National Estate (Australian Heritage Commission) and the Heritage Council of NSW. (Sir Henry Parkes school of Arts)
A part of Sir Henry Parkes speech at Tenterfield School of Arts, Thursday, 24 October, 1889 (Tenterfield Oration):
"The great question which we have to consider is, whether the time has not now arisen for the creation on this Australian continent of an Australian government and an Australian parliament.
To make myself as plain as possible, Australia has now a population of three and a half millions, and the American people numbered only between three and four millions when they formed the great Commonwealth of the United States. The numbers are about the same. Surely what the Americans have done by war, Australians can bring about in peace". (Sir Henry Parkes school of Arts)
It extends across the bill in the form of microtext, or a wide gray line, to the naked eye.
Under the school are the emblems of all united Australian states.
New South Wales - a red cross bearing a golden lion in the center and an eight pointed golden star on each arm.
Victoria - five white stars, representing the constellation of the Southern Cross. The crown is on top.
Queensland - On a Roundel Argent a Maltese Cross Azure surmounted with a Royal Crown.
South Australia - The "piping shrike" is the emblematic representation of the Australian magpie.
Western Australia - Black Swan.
Tasmania - a red lion.
On foreground is the signature of Sir Henry Parkes.
Right of Sir Parkes portrait is a painting "OPENING OF THE FIRST PARLIAMENT OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA BY H.R.H. THE DUKE OF CORNWALL AND YORK, (LATER H.M. KING GEORGE V) MAY 9 1901" by Tom Roberts (1903).
Tom Roberts wrote a large number of landscapes and portraits, among them a portrait of Sir Henry Parkes (at this banknote). However, his most famous work, which brought him fame, considered two large canvases: "Sheep shearing" and "The Big Picture", which shows the first meeting of the Australian Federal Parliament.
In the background is a schematic view of Royal Exhibition Building in Melbourne. In the picture lithograph of the Royal Exhibition Center, built specially for the World Exhibition in 1880.
It is located at 9 Nicholson Street in the Carlton Gardens, flanked by Victoria, Nicholson, Carlton and Rathdowne Streets, at the north-eastern edge of the central business district. It was built to host the Melbourne International Exhibition in 1880-1881 and later hosted the opening of the first Parliament of Australia in 1901. Throughout the 20th century smaller sections and wings of the building were subject to demolition and fire; however, the main building, known as the Great Hall, survived.
It received restoration throughout the 1990s and in 2004 became the first building in Australia to be awarded UNESCO World Heritage status, being one of the last remaining major 19th-century exhibition buildings in the world. It sits adjacent to the Melbourne Museum and is the largest item in Museum Victoria's collection. Today, the building hosts various exhibitions and other events and is closely tied with events at the Melbourne Museum. 
On the right side is scheme of the old Federation pavilion in Centennial Parklands.
A little bit of history: It was early afternoon on New Years Day, 1901 and more than 60,000 people had gathered in Centennial Parklands, dressed in their Sunday best, to witness the proclamation of the Commonwealth of Australia.
The Great Inaugural Procession had already made its way through the streets of Sydney and dignitaries, politicians and community leaders were taking their places for the most significant event this young country had witnessed so far.
As the hour approached for the signing of the documents, all eyes fixed on the temporary pavilion in the center of the valley, constructed especially for the occasion. The Pavilion - a 14 meter high, octagonal, domed structure made of plaster of Paris - was richly decorated with bas-relief castings of native flora and the imperial coat of arms (the original design can be seen on the Australian $5 notes). Inside the structure sat a stone obelisk - the 'Federation Stone' - created to symbolize the coming together of the states and territories.
And so, as history informs us, at 1.00 pm, 1 January 1901, the Queen's Proclamation was read, the Governor-General and Federal Ministers were sworn in and a 21-gun salute declared the people from Australia's six separate colonies united in a Federal Commonwealth of Australia.
After its auspicious beginnings, the site of the original pavilion fell into a state of decline as the plaster of Paris quickly degraded, until in 1903 it was removed altogether.
The Federation Stone which had been housed within the pavilion was later placed on a sandstone pedestal and surrounded by an iron picket fence in 1904. It remained there until the new Federation Pavilion was opened in 1988 as part of the Bicentennial Celebrations. (Centennial Parklands)
Denomination in numeral and in words in top right corner.
Revers:
Portrait by Margaret Preston (1911), an order of committee of citizens of Adelaide. Currently portrait kept in the Art Gallery of South Avstralia. The engraver used the engraving of this portrait for banknote.
Catherine Helen Spence (31 October 1825 - 3 April 1910) was a Scottish-born Australian author, teacher, journalist, politician and leading suffragist. In 1897 she became Australia's first female political candidate after standing (unsuccessfully) for the Federal Convention held in Adelaide. Called the "Greatest Australian Woman" by Miles Franklin and given the nomenclature of "Grand Old Woman of Australia' on her eightieth birthday, Spence was commemorated on the Australian five-dollar note issued for the Centenary of Federation of Australia.
She was one of the prime movers, with C. Emily Clark (sister of John Howard Clark), of the "Boarding-out Society". This organization had as its aim removing destitute children from the asylum into approved families and to eventually remove all children from institutions except the delinquent. At first treated with scorn by the South Australian Government, the scheme was encouraged when the institutions devoted to the handling of troublesome boys became overcrowded. These two were also appointed to the State Children's Council, which controlled the Magill Reformatory. C H Spence was also the only female member of the Destitute Board.
She was an advocate of Thomas Hare's scheme for the representation of minorities, at one stage considering this issue more pressing than that of woman suffrage.
She traveled and lectured both at home and abroad on what she called Effective Voting that became known as Proportional Representation. She lived to see it adopted in Tasmania.
Left on the note is the building, depicting the Council of State for Children, the organization and activities of which Catherine Spence has devoted nearly forty years of life. Old photo is courtesy of the State Library of South Australia.
The building was located in Adelaide, at 33 Flinders Street (south side of the street), on the corner with Gawler Place. Today it is a multi-story office block.
Above on the left is the Southern Cross. This emblem of Australia was placed on the federal flag of the Commonwealth in 1901.
Southern Cross is one of the brightest constellations in the southern hemisphere, and ever since the first British settlement on the continent symbolizes Australia. The Mariners, who went to the South Seas to an unknown land, crossing the equator, saw beautiful new unknown constellation, so for a long time Australia is associated with these stars.
Ivor Evans, one of the flag's designers, intended the Southern Cross to refer also to the four moral virtues ascribed to the four main stars by Dante: justice, prudence, temperance and fortitude.
The number of points on the stars of the Southern Cross on today's Australian flag differs from the original competition-winning design, on which they ranged between five and nine points each, representing their relative brightness in the night sky. The stars are named after the first five letters of the Greek alphabet, in decreasing order of brightness in the sky. In order to simplify manufacture, the British Admiralty standardized the four larger outer stars at seven points each, leaving the smaller middle star with five points. This change was officially gazetted on 23 February 1903.
A complete specification for the current design was published in the Commonwealth Gazette in 1934.
Under the portrait is Catherine Helen Spence's signature.
On the right side are the portraits of federation supporters from each state.
Andrew Inglis Clark (24 February 1848 -14 November 1907) was an Australian Founding Father and the principal author of the Australian Constitution, he was also an engineer, barrister, politician, electoral reformer and jurist. He initially qualified as an engineer, however he re-trained as a barrister in order to effectively fight for social causes which deeply concerned him. After a long political career, mostly spent as Attorney-General, he was appointed a Senior Justice of the Supreme Court of Tasmania. Despite being acknowledged as the leading expert on the Australian Constitution, he was never appointed to the High Court of Australia.
Sir Edmund Barton, GCMG, KC (18 January 1849 - 7 January 1920) was an Australian politician and judge. He served as the first Prime Minister of Australia and became a founding justice of the High Court of Australia.
Barton first became an MP in 1879, in the Parliament of New South Wales. He contributed solidly to the federation movement through the 1890s, eventually contesting the inaugural 1901 federal election as head of a caretaker Protectionist Party federal government. No party won a majority; however, the government was supported by the Australian Labor Party, against the opposition Free Trade Party.
Barton resigned as Prime Minister in 1903 to become a judge of the High Court of Australia, serving until his death in 1920.
Sir John Forrest GCMG (22 August 1847 - 2 September 1918) was an Australian explorer, the first Premier of Western Australia and a cabinet minister in Australia's first federal parliament.
As a young man, John Forrest won fame as an explorer by leading three expeditions into the interior of Western Australia. He was appointed Surveyor General and in 1890 became the first Premier of Western Australia, its only premier as a self-governing colony. Forrest's premiership gave the state ten years of stable administration during a period of rapid development and demographic change. He pursued a policy of large-scale public works and extensive land settlement, and he helped to ensure that Western Australia joined the federation of Australian states. After federation, he moved to federal politics, where he was at various times postmaster-general, Minister for Defence, Minister for Home Affairs, Treasurer and acting Prime Minister.
Alfred Deakin (3 August 1856 - 7 October 1919), Australian politician, was a leader of the movement for Australian federation and later the second Prime Minister of Australia. In the last quarter of the 19th century, Deakin was a major contributor to the establishment of liberal reforms in the colony of Victoria, including pro-worker industrial reforms. He also played a major part in establishing irrigation in Australia. It is likely that he could have been Premier of Victoria, but he chose to devote his energy to federation.
Charles Cameron Kingston, (22 October 1850 - 11 May 1908) Australian politician, was an early liberal Premier of South Australia serving from 1893 to 1899 with the support of Labor led by John McPherson from 1893 and Lee Batchelor from 1897 in the House of Assembly, winning the 1893, 1896, and 1899 state elections against the conservatives. He was a leading proponent of and contributed extensively on the Federation of Australia, and was elected to the federal House of Representatives with the most votes amongst the seven elected in the single South Australian division at the 1901 federal election, serving under the Protectionist Party. A radical liberal in state politics, his government introduced such progressive measures as: electoral reform including the first law to give votes to women in Australia (and second in the world only to New Zealand), a legitimation Act, the first conciliation and arbitration Act in Australia, establishment of a state bank, a high protective tariff, regulation of factories, a progressive system of land and income taxation, a public works programme, and more extensive workers compensation.
Sir Samuel Walker Griffith GCMG, QC, (21 June 1845 - 9 August 1920) was an Australian politician, Premier of Queensland, Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia, and a principal author of the Constitution of Australia.
Above them, stylized branch of golden acacia (golden wattle). Acacia were informal floral emblem of Australia for many years, but only 19 August 1988, the year of the bicentenary of the discovery of the continent by Europeans, golden acacia was declared the official national floral emblem. Four years later, the Governor-General has announced, that on September 1 of each year will be celebrated as the National Day of Acacia. Branches of acacia, as decoration, are included in the large coat of arms of the Commonwealth of Nations.
Gray stripe, along the center, has a micro text, containing modern Australian anthem "Advance Australia Fair". It is the official national anthem of Australia. Created by the Scottish-born composer Peter Dodds McCormick, the song was first performed in 1878, and was sung in Australia as a patriotic song. It did not gain its status as the official anthem until 1984, following a plebiscite to choose the national song in 1977. Other songs and marches have been influenced by "Advance Australia Fair", such as the Australian vice-regal salute.
"Advance Australia Fair", with modified lyrics from the original (see development of lyrics), was adopted as the Australian national anthem on 19 April 1984 by a proclamation by the Governor-General, Sir Ninian Stephen, on a recommendation by the Labor government of Bob Hawke. "God Save the Queen", now known as the royal anthem, continues to be played alongside the Australian national anthem at public engagements in Australia that are attended by the Queen or members of the Royal Family.
Right, at the bottom, is the rising sun. Many peoples believe that the sun is a symbol of life, eternal and immutable, so the rising sun means the birth, the resurrection and flourishing, as well as it is a traditional symbol of New South Wales, symbolizing new growth of the country.
Denomination in numeral in top right corner.
Comments:
Designer: Garry Emery.
Those discrete to this note include:
(a) A clear window containing the embossed denomination numeral "5" which can be seen from both sides of the note. There is a mauve tint to the window.
(b) When the note is held up to the light, the seven pointed Commonwealth Star becomes visible with four points on the front registering perfectly with three on the back.
(c) An image of Parkes in the under-print (instead of the Coat of Arms as on other issues) becomes apparent at the top right on the front when the note is angled to the light.
(d) Micro-printing of an extract from Parkes' Tenterfield speech in 23 lines to the left and in 24 lines to the right of his portrait and the words of the national anthem "Advance Australia Fair" in 26 lines to the right of Spence. "FIVE DOLLARS" appears many times in micro-print diagonally in a band across the top and bottom of both sides of the note.
(e) One vertical serial number in black at the right on the back in Butsch Grotesque font.
(f) A self authenticating feature in the form of a hidden "5" below the small printed triangle in the bottom right hand corner of the back of the note is revealed when that area of the note is viewed through the mauve coloured area of the clear window. Fold the note so that the triangle in the window is on top of and in direct contact with, the printed triangle. To accentuate the effect, move the triangle in the window around the printed triangle.
(g) Intricate, multi-coloured, fine-line patterns and images appear on each side of the note.
(h) When exposed to ultraviolet light, the serial number, the stars of the Southern Cross, the yellow orientation bars at the top and the bottom of the note and the wattle flowers fluoresce. Additionally, the denomination numeral "5" below the printed "5" on the back of the note also fluoresces. It is not visible under normal light conditions.
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