Talk:Australian dollar/Archives/2017

The Royal

The received wisdom ever since 1963 is that the proposed name "Royal" for Australia's decimal currency was all Bob Menzies' idea, staunch monarchist that he was. There are sources galore for this. However, I have an article by Tim Bowden, called "Love me tender", published in the Weekend Australian Magazine of 16-17 May 1998 (I can't find it online), in which he says:

Eventually seven names were shortlisted for the Cabinet meeting of June 5, 1963: austral, dollar, crown, royal, regal, pound and tasman. The decision on the royal was said to be unanimous. (Despite the opprobrium that was later heaped on Menzies over the royal, he favoured the term dollar in the Cabinet debate.)

Now, Menzies lead the government, and he took primary responsibility for all Cabinet decisions, which are always presented as unanimous, and are binding on ministers, including the Prime Minister. But it's interesting that, according to Bowden, the final decision to have a dollar was Menzies' idea all along, and royal must have been some other minister's idea, possibly Holt. Can we find some corroborating source for this? Of course Menzies would have supported the name royal after the Cabinet decision, but that tells us nothing about his views inside the Cabinet before the decision was made. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:20, 20 December 2017 (UTC)