Key Highlights

  • The theme of Connection to Country was chosen by an Imagery Selection Panel after more than 2,100 public submissions.
  • The brief asks the artwork to reflect the overturning of terra nullius, traditional ecological knowledge and the diversity of First Nations peoples, in a hopeful tone.
  • There will be no portrait, and no issue date has yet been announced.

The brief for Australia's redesigned $5 note asks the eventual artwork to reflect the overturning of terra nullius and how it shaped a positive future for First Nations peoples, under a theme of Connection to Country.

Banknotes are among the most widely handled objects in any country, and the images on them are chosen to say something about the nation that issues them. For the next $5 note, the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) has set out what that something should be. The theme is Connection to Country, and one of the specific elements the design brief calls for is a reflection of the overturning of terra nullius.

The theme is introduced with a short statement: "Country is the land, the waters, and the sky. All are connected."

How the theme was chosen

The theme did not emerge from a single decision-maker. The RBA received more than 2,100 public submissions as part of the process to reimagine the $5 note.

The decision on the theme was made by an Imagery Selection Panel. Its members came from the RBA, Note Printing Australia, and prominent First Nations business and community members. That composition brings together the institution responsible for the currency, the organisation that prints it, and First Nations voices from business and community life.

The theme is not itself a design. It guides an artwork, and the panel advises as that artwork becomes a banknote design. The process therefore moves in stages: from public submissions, to a theme, to an artwork, and then to the adaptation of that artwork into a working banknote.

What the design brief asks for

The brief is more detailed than a single theme. It asks the artwork to address several elements:

  • the emotional and spiritual connection to Country;
  • the overturning of terra nullius, and how it shaped a positive future for First Nations peoples;
  • the contributions of First Nations peoples to environmental restoration and conservation through traditional ecological knowledge; and
  • the diversity of First Nations peoples across Australia and the Torres Strait.

The brief also sets boundaries. The artwork is to avoid tokenism and stereotypes. Its tone is to be hopeful. And it is not to include sacred or secret information or images.

Why terra nullius is in the brief

Of all the elements in the brief, the reference to terra nullius is perhaps the most explicitly historical and legal. Terra nullius is a Latin term usually rendered as "land belonging to no one". The brief does not ask the artwork to depict the concept itself. It asks the artwork to reflect its overturning, and how that overturning shaped a positive future for First Nations peoples.

That framing matters in two ways. First, it focuses on a turning point rather than on the doctrine. The emphasis falls on what changed. Second, it connects that change to the future, consistent with the brief's requirement for a hopeful tone. The design is asked to look forward from the overturning, not only back at it.

The element also fits naturally with the theme as a whole. A statement that "Country is the land, the waters, and the sky. All are connected" describes a relationship between people and place. The brief places that relationship and the overturning of terra nullius side by side: connection to Country is the subject, and the overturning of terra nullius is one of the developments the artwork is asked to reflect, together with the positive future the brief says it helped shape.

The brief does not specify how an artist should represent this, and the RBA has not released a design. How an abstract legal and historical turning point is translated into imagery on a small, functional banknote will be one of the creative questions the artwork answers.

The terra nullius element sits alongside requirements that pull in complementary directions.

The call to represent the diversity of First Nations peoples across Australia and the Torres Strait asks the artwork to avoid presenting a single, uniform picture. The requirement to avoid tokenism and stereotypes reinforces that. Recognition of traditional ecological knowledge in environmental restoration and conservation brings in a contemporary, practical contribution, not only a historical one.

The exclusion of sacred or secret information or images sets a firm limit. Whatever the artwork depicts, it must respect knowledge and imagery that are not for public display. For an object as public as a banknote, that boundary is significant.

Holding these elements together, a hopeful tone, historical recognition, environmental contribution, diversity, and respect for what is not to be shared, is the task the brief sets.

No portrait, and no date yet

One clear departure is already confirmed. The RBA's project page states plainly: "We won't be putting a portrait on the $5 note this time." The note's imagery is to come from the Connection to Country artwork rather than from the depiction of an individual.

The RBA has not given a timeline for when the new note will be issued. Members of the public can subscribe for updates on the project. Until a design is released, the brief is the best guide to what the note is intended to convey. The sequence set out so far, theme first, then artwork, then banknote design with the panel's advice, suggests the brief will remain the reference point at each of those stages.

The $5 note is a small piece of the RBA's work in a year dominated by interest rate decisions and payments reform. But a banknote design has a reach few policy documents match, and the brief makes clear that this one is meant to carry a considered message about Country, history and the future.

The bottom line

The next $5 note will carry an artwork based on the theme of Connection to Country, chosen by an Imagery Selection Panel after more than 2,100 public submissions. Its brief asks the artwork to reflect the overturning of terra nullius and how it shaped a positive future for First Nations peoples, alongside connection to Country, traditional ecological knowledge and the diversity of First Nations peoples, in a hopeful tone and without tokenism, stereotypes or sacred or secret material. There will be no portrait, and no issue date has yet been announced.

The selected Connection to Country theme and design brief are not a final approved banknote design. The redesigned $5 note has not been issued.