It was 40 years ago today when the world’s greatest Treasurer announced the floating of the Australian Dollar.
Prior to 1983 the Australian Dollar maintained a fixed exchange rate. The Labor government led by Prime Minister Bob Hawke and Treasurer Paul Keating floated the Australian dollar on the open market. The floating of the dollar was one of the reforms that eventually led to Australia going for over 30 years without a recession.
The Aussie dollar has become one of the top five traded currencies. The long term average value is US75c but it has traded as low as 48c and as high as $1.10. (Currently about US 66c)
As a traveller it is nice to be able to carry cash and change it anywhere in the world, something that was not possible prior to 1983.
While Foster’s is the largest-selling Australian beer brand in the world, it is not as popular and relatively rare compared with other beers in Australia, particularly when compared to current Carlton & United Breweries beers such as Victoria Bitter and Carlton Draught.
History
Foster’s was created by two American brothers, William M. and Ralph R. Foster, who arrived in Melbourne from New York in 1886. The brothers began brewing Foster’s Lager in November 1888. It was made available to the public from February 1889. The product was first exported in 1901, when bottles were sent to Australian combatants in the Boer War. In 1907, the company merged with five other brewing companies to form Carlton & United Breweries (CUB). Then only available in bottles, Foster’s Lager was considered to be CUB’s premium brand.
Foster’s Lager was first imported into the UK in 1971 and was launched in the US in 1972.
Commencing 1981, the brand was brewed under licence in the UK by Watney Mann and Truman Brewers. In 1986, Courage Brewery obtained the rights to brew and distribute Foster’s alongside Watney Mann and Truman Brewers, which Courage took over in 1990.
In 2011, CUB and its product lines, including Foster’s, were bought by the South African and British conglomerate SABMiller, which in turn was incorporated into the multinational (Belgian, Brazilian, and American) Anheuser-Busch InBev in 2016. In 2019, Anheuser-Busch InBev agreed to sell CUB including Fosters to Asahi Breweries. The deal was completed in 2020.
The Tim Foster’s yeast in use today was brought to Carlton in 1923 from Professor Jorgensen in Denmark.
The lager is hopped with selected oil extracts of Super Pride of Ringwood hops, which like any modern beer, is added after fermentation to minimise losses to the yeast sediment. The hop is sourced from the only two farms in Australia that grow it.
Seemingly then, Fosters was brewed in Australia for nearly a hundred years then fell out of favour. Meanwhile, thanks to Paul Hogan and a series of popular 1980’s TV ads, Fosters acquired a whole new customer base in the UK, where it was now brewed, but still using Australian yeast and hops.
Beers and brewing are now an international business so no surprise here:
Eight of the top 10 beers are Australian born, bred and brewed. The only foreign-originating drops are Corona and Asahi.
However, nine of the brands are ultimately foreign owned – with two Japanese companies owning eight brands – even most of those beers with an Aussie heritage. Asahi owns Carlton and United Breweries, makers of Great Northern, Carlton and others, with Kirin the parent of Lion which makes number three beer XXXX Gold.
The only true blue Aussie beer is fourth placed Coopers which is still independent and Australian owned.
Australia’s top selling beers of 2022
Great Northern (Brewed by CUB, part of Asahi)
Carlton Dry (CUB/Asahi)
XXXX Gold (Lion, part of Kirin)
Coopers (independent)
Victoria Bitter (CUB/Asahi)
Corona (Anheuser-Busch InBev, brewed in Australia by CUB/Asahi)
Those in the picture are actually the old notes (still valid and in circulation though) the new ones have a feature for blind people to identify notes. They are made of plastic all have clear patches and lots of laser images.
The queen will be replaced on the next $5 note by an aboriginal theme.
Of course they all have names - prawn for the pink five dollar bill, bluey or blue swimmer for the blue 10, lobster for the red 20, and pineapple for the yellow 50. The $100 note is apparently called a watermelon though you never see one used, I think if you offered one in a supermarket the girls would call the police.
The smallest coin is 5c (the old sixpence) but I think most people throw them away as they are useless, just clutter up your pocket. The 1c and 2c coins went years ago, they cost more to produce than their face value
Those names are used in colloquial speech, I assume?
Thanks for the pic. Kind of weird that a $100 note would not be used? That would be 60€ which is not much money if you go by the exchange rate. It would roughly correspond to our €50 note. That one and the 100€ ($160) notes are widely used and accepted although their value would be almost twice as much. In supermarkets and the like you could also easily pay with a 200€ note ($326).
We used to have a 500€ note ($813) that went out of circulation because of money laundering.
OK, thinking about it counterfeiting might be the reason why?
I don’t know why $100 notes aren’t used, they just aren’t, I think they are all stashed in safes to avoid tax or,in the case of pensioners, to avoid the mean’s test.
ATMs only spew out $50 and $20s but ATMs are disappearing as few people use cash anyway it’s all card payments these days, some place won’t take cash at all.- in my local club you can only pay for a meal with a card though they do take cash at the bar most people pay by card.
So you are moving towards a plastic money society (cards) which a lot of people in Europe seem to worry about. Aren’t people concerned about that in AUS?
You’re right, you obviously recognised that the one on the $5 note is well known for it, then you can’t trust these damn foreigners but she is getting the elbow in the next design. The rest are less heinous and far more interesting
Top Row from Left:
Reverend John Flynn - founded Royal Flying Doctor Service
Dame Nellie Melba - Opera Singer
Edith Cowen - Social worker, politician and feminist.
Sir John Monash - Engineer, soldier and civic leader.
Mary Reibey - Pioneer businesswoman with interests in shipping and property.
Bottom Row:
Catherine Helen Spence - Journalist, social and political reformer, novelist and feminist.
David Unaipon - Writer, public speaker and inventor.
AB ‘Banjo’ Paterson - Poet, ballad writer, journalist and horseman.
Sir Henry Parkes - Politician known as the ‘Father of Federation’.
Dame Mary Gilmore - Author, journalist, poet, patriot and campaigner against injustice and deprivation.
Only us older folk. From my observation few younger people use cash or cards they just use their phone. My youngest son only carries a phone with a $50 tucked in it for emergencies, no wallet.
His driving licence, medicare card etc are all on his phone.
Personally I only use cash if I get a discount for using it.
Thanks Bruce I guessed they would be very distinguished and famous people in Australia, I didn’t know any of them except perhaps Dame Nellie Melba who I’ve heard of, but I wouldn’t recognise her if I was stood next to her at a bus stop together. Although her clothes and hair style might give her away.
Our notes contain people who would probably be recognised worldwide, and the rest of the world benefited from their work…
Michael Faraday - George Stephenson - Thomas Telford and who could forget James Hargreaves…?
