The banknotes of the Australian dollar were first issued by the Reserve Bank of Australia on 14 February 1966, when Australia adopted decimal currency. The $5 note was not issued until May 1967.
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Original series (papernote)
The $1 (10/-), $2 (£1), $10 (£5), and $20 (£10) had exact exchange rates with pounds and were a similar colour to the notes they replaced, but the $5 (£2/10) did not, and so was introduced after the public had become familiar with decimal currency. Notes issued between 1966 and 1973 bore the title "Commonwealth of Australia". Starting from 1974, the title on the new notes only read "Australia" and the legal tender phrase was also changed from "Legal Tender throughout the Commonwealth of Australia and the territories of the Commonwealth" to "This Australian Note is legal tender throughout Australia and its territories". The $50 note was introduced in 1973 and the $100 note in 1984, in response to inflation requiring larger denominations for transactions. The one dollar note was replaced by a coin in 1984, while the two dollar note was replaced by a smaller coin in 1988. These original bank notes were designed by Gordon Andrews, who rejected tradional Australian clichés in favour of interesting and familiar subjects such as Aboriginal culture, women, the environment, architecture and aeronautics. Although no longer printed, all previous issues of Australian dollar banknotes are considered legal tender.
Second series (polymer)
In 1988, the Reserve Bank of Australia issued $10 notes in plastic. The polypropylene polymer banknotes were produced by Note Printing Australia, to commemorate the bicentenary of European settlement in Australia. These notes contained a transparent "window" with a diffractive optically variable device (DOVD) image of Captain James Cook as a security feature. Australian banknotes were the first in the world to use such features. All current Australian banknotes also contain Microprinting for further security.
Third series (polymer)
There were initial difficulties with the first banknote issued; the $10 note (pictured above) had problems with the holographic security feature detaching from the note. However, the Reserve Bank saw potential in the issue of plastic banknotes and commenced preparations for an entirely new series made from polymer, commencing with the $5 note in 1992. In April 1995, the design of the $5 note was updated to match the rest of the New Note Series, with additional slight changes in 1996. In 2001, a special commemorative 'Federation' $5 note was produced, but in 2002, the previous version's production commenced again.
From 2002, the design of all notes (except for the $5 note picturing the Queen) was slightly changed to include the names of the people pictured on them under the portraits, and swapping the order of the signatures of officials on the notes.
Today all Australian notes are made of polymer.
Fourth Series (polymer)
On 13 February 2015 the Reserve Bank of Australia announced that the next series of Australia notes would have a tactile feature to help the visually impaired community to tell the value of the note after a successful campaign led by 15-year-old Connor McLeod, who is blind, to introduce the new feature. The $5 banknote includes the tactile feature and was issued on 1 September 2016, to coincide with Australia's National Wattle Day. Philip Lowe, the governor of the Reserve Bank, has said that the other fourth series banknotes will be released separately, anticipating that the $10 note will be released in 2017, followed by the $50 note, with the $20 and $100 notes unlikely to be released before 2018.