Coinage Campaign To Open To Cha-cha Beat

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31107, 9 July 1966, Page 16

Coinage Campaign To Open To Cha-cha Beat

With a little jingle set to a cha-cha beat, the Decimal Currency Board will launch an intensified propaganda campaign next week. If men start humming the jingle in the shower, children sing it on the way to school, and housewives warble it over the sink, the board will be well satisfied.

DC Day decimal currency day will be exactly a year away tomorrow, July 10. From that day the New Zealand public wall start spending dollars and cents, and the old currency will be gradually withdrawn.

Not many persons expect to have much trouble adjusting to the new system, since it is based on the 10s unit, and it is likely that the out-of-step cents and pennies will be the only difficulty. Australian experience, however, indicates that even that difficulty will soon be overcome. Minting of the New Zealand coins will begin in September, but trial strikes of the bronze cent and 2 cent coins are expected to arrive in New Zealand in a few weeks. COIN SHIPMENTS

Shipments of the new coins will start to arrive before the tend of the year and will be distributed to banks and post offices first. They will not be degal currency until D.C. Day. I Mr J. N. L. Searle, of the Treasury, who is also secre[tary of the Decimal Currency Board, is confident that the I profits from the sale of metal in the coins withdrawn from I circulation will cover the whole cost of the change, i If that is so, profits from the sale of coin metal will pay for the new coins and bank-notes, plus the cost of converting nearly 70,000 busines machines, plus the publicity and other preparatory work done by the Decimal Currency Board. Designs for the new banknotes have not yet been announced, but the colours of the one, two, 10, 20, and 100dollar notes will be about the same those of their £ equivalents. Only the five-dollar note will be an entirely new colour. The Reserve Bank intends to replace the bank-notes in a matter of weeks after D.C. Day. THREE AGENCIES Three agencies have major responsibilities. The Decimal Currency Board’s two main functions are the conversion of accounting machines and the encouragement of public understanding of the project. The Treasury’s job is to provide the new coinage, and the Reserve Bank’s job is to provide new bank-notes.

Trading banks will be the first to convert to decimal currency. They are expected to close for business at 3 x p.m. on Wednesday, July 5, next year, and reopen on the morning of D.C. Day, Monday, July 10, fully converted for decimal currency.

Most of the arrangements for converting some 3500 trading bank machines have been completed, and conversion will begin in February. With the co-operation of busi-ness-machine companies, conversion centres have been set up in Christchurch, Wellington, and Auckland. The companies are providing supervising technicians to

organise the teams which will do the work, and the machine parts have been ordered. Up to 5000 business machines will have been converted to decimals by D.C. Day. REASON FOR LAG The enormous task of converting another 60,000 machines in business premises throughout the country is the reason for the lag of up to 18 months after D.C. Day before the old currency is dropped completely. It was considered worth the i inconvenience of having a dual currency for a time to save the enormous cost of com-

plete machine conversion before D.C. Day. But Mr Searle is confident that the dual-cur-rency period will be much shorter than 18 months. Though all banks and post offices will work in decimal currency from the start, it will be open to other businesses to work with £.s.d. until their machines are converted. PUBLICITY Others which are likely to work in decimals from the start are Government departments, public transport authorities, and many retail stores which will already have their decimal cash registers. They will charge in decimal prices and give decimal currency in change. Publicity will start to warm up next week, when the

Decimal Currency Board will start advertising in newspapers and on television and radio.

Advertisements will appear in all New Zealand newspapers inviting businessmen to apply to the board for its new booklet, “Dollars and Cents and Your Business,” the cha-cha beat jingle will be played by radio stations, and “Mr Dollar” will be shown in animated television cartoon strips. The board has produced one leaflet for mailing to all householders, and is now preparing a more informative one in terms of such universal charges as postal rates and the prices of familiar commodities. It will tell people how to shop during the dual-currency period. The board has also set up a corps of 500 volunteer speakers who will address clubs and organisations throughout New Zealand to bring the facts about decimal currency to as many as possible. More seminars are planned, too. SCHOOLCHILDREN To encourage schoolchildren to learn about decimal currency, the board will introduce a “Dollar Scholar” scheme next year. Certificates will be issued to children as they attain a certain level of understanding of the subject measured by special tests. Other publicity plans are colourful posters to be displayed in post offices and banks, advertisements in telephone directories, much greater use of “Mr Dollar,” information booths in post offices, and an educational film to be shown in picture theatres.

Two public information officers have been appointed in the last few months to organise the publicity campaign, which will cost several thousand pounds.