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IT MAY BE the smallest-denominated Australian dollar banknote, but a new design for the Aus$5 bill attracted an outsized amount of criticism when it was unveiled earlier today, with detractors calling it “hideous” and “like vomit”.
The note, which will replace its more bland predecessor from September 1, features a yellow Prickly Moses wattle flower and a colourful Eastern Spinebill native bird.
“Each banknote in the new series will depict a different species of Australian wattle and a native bird within a number of the elements,” Reserve Bank of Australia governor Glenn 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.”
But critics – from social media users to bird-lovers – were quick to express their disdain.
“Our new fivers look like vomit,” one user wrote on Twitter, while another quipped: “A thousand monkeys with a thousand versions of Photoshop could never come up with something as hideous as the new Australian $5 note.”
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.
“New Australian $5 note really knocks years off the Queen,” tweeted Joanna Hall.
The bill even managed to raise the ire of bird lovers.
“It’s way off in terms of colouration,” Birdlife Australia’s migratory shorebird programme manager Dan Weller told AFP, although the bird’s shape and markings were fairly accurate.
“The way it’s been shown on the note, the only two colours that are right on there are the black and the white.”
Eastern Spinebills – found on Australia’s east coast – have red eyes, black heads, grey wings and tails, white throats, and chestnut-coloured undersides.
But the new bill gives them a bluish underside with a bright blue, yellow, purple and pink wing.
One Twitter user tried to cash in on the lack of support for the new note, tweeting: “I like the new Australian $5 note. For those who hate it, feel free to hand the notes over to me #altruistic.”
The bill is being introduced to mark the 50th anniversary of the nation’s conversion to decimal currency.
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Sympathy to the poor woman, but serious sympathy to the poor truck driver, this is becoming all to frequent in this country, he was only doing his days work, minding his own business.
That poor woman. Her whole life turned upside down on a morning where we all should be just enjoying the sunshine and then this happens. Devastated for her.
This is utterly horrible. Poor young mum. Poor wee kid. Words fail me
So tragic. How is that mother ever going to get over this. Rip little man. Watch over your mam.
Looks like it was deliberate. I could be wrong but it looks like attempted murder of the woman and murder/ suicide of the child and man. I know that road well and if he was from Lattin he would know it well too and would know not to overtake. Rip to both and my utmost sympathy to the mother of the little boy.
He’s not eastern European, his parents are Italian, but he was born and raised here,
Don’t like the look where this story is going
It’s easy to condemn but the poor man must have been in a very distressed state of mind to do something like that.
RIP.
Fcuk him. He just destroyed a mothers life and murdered her son. If he lives we would all be saying he should be locked up. But now that he died we feel sorry for him. And don’t get me started on the funeral service for this fella where the priests says “it’s a dark day”.. This man just murdered his son and attempted to murder his partner. S(umbag
Ricky.. Most murdering b@stards are in a distressed state of mind
When a mother murders her children society reaches out the hand of compassion and understanding.
Why is it not the same for fathers?
Ricky. Murdering mothers are worse than mothering dads
Just think about what happened here for a moment………and reflect on how this situation spiralled out of control to this point. The human tragedy involved.
Can we truly say we understand it and as such are in a position to make a judgement call one way or the other?
Sinead I hope you are never in a situation where your mind is so badly messed up by depression that you are not thinking rationally. Obviously this man was out of his mind doing this and it breaks my heart that a little boy has died and his mother had to go through such an assault, but nobody knows his circumstances and shouldn’t be quick to judge that he was ” evil” . I’m not saying I agree with what he did because I don’t , but with serious mental health problems a while back myself I know that your mind does not think normally . I certainly hope this is the case with him because I’d hate to think this WAS an act of pure evil
Oh no. That poor little boy. Whether the crash was an accident or deliberate, no child deserves that.
So sad, too much detail re the crash. Horrible set of circumstances
It’s just so sad to be hearing about theses suicides , people should always realised that life is 2 step backwards and 1 step forward , this carry on could be avoided… RIP to the little lad … So sad !
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