POCKET GUIDE TO AUSTRALIAN BANKNOTES 4 The Reinvention of BanknotesTHE AUSTRALIAN INNOVATION OF POLYMER BANKNOTES

The Remembrance of Federation

In this Pocket Guide

A commemorative $5 banknote was issued in January 2001 for the centenary of Federation, the act that unified the six self-governing colonies into a single nation, the Commonwealth of Australia. Preparations for the new banknote began in 1997. A committee from a cross-section of the Australian community was established to assist in deciding matters such as the denomination to be issued and the identities to be represented. Following a competition among Australia's leading practitioners, Garry Emery was selected as its designer.

The banknote focussed on Sir Henry Parkes, a proponent of Federation, and Catherine Helen Spence, an advocate for electoral and social reform. Tom Roberts' commanding painting of Henry Parkes was the basis of his portrait, and the image of Catherine Spence relates to a posthumous portrait by Margaret Preston, whose early art she had supported.

In 1889, Parkes delivered an address to his former constituents at the Tenterfield School of Arts building, which is represented on the banknote to the left of his portrait. He declared that the time was right for a convention of representatives from all the colonies ‘to devise the constitution which would be necessary for bringing into existence a federal government with a federal parliament for the conduct of national undertaking’.¹ The image of the Tenterfield building on the banknote is lined with the symbols of the six states to reflect the spirit of Parkes' address.

The banknote continues the visual narrative of Federation by representing the ceremonial pavilion in Centennial Park, Sydney, constructed for the inauguration of Federation on 1 January 1901. It completes the process of Federation with the depiction of the dome of Melbourne's Royal Exhibition Building, where the first Parliament of Australia was opened on 9 May of that year. They are combined with a detail of Tom Roberts' painting portraying the Duke of Cornwall and York (later King George V) as he opened the first parliament.

Catherine Helen Spence worked to obtain the vote for women, which was achieved by South Australia in 1895. South Australia became the first place in the world where women were granted the right to stand for parliament, and Catherine Spence became the country's first female political candidate when she unsuccessfully contested the election for delegates to the 1897 Australasian Federal Convention. Her portrait on the banknote is accompanied by advocates of the Federation movement, being from left: Andrew Inglis Clark (Tasmania), Edmund Barton (New South Wales), John Forrest (Western Australia), Alfred Deakin (Victoria), Charles Kingston (South Australia) and Samuel Griffith (Queensland).

Spence also argued for the rights of children, including the removal of children from institutions to be raised in approved homes. She co-founded the Boarding Out Society in 1872. The society's responsibilities – visiting the children and inspecting the homes – were taken over by the South Australian State Children's Council, represented on the banknote by the building's facade.