Has it really been 50 years since we were forcibly introduced to decimal currency?
Five decades since we stopped learning to calculate the complexities of pounds, shillings and pence and count in simple tens instead?
July 10, 1967 was a Monday, as was its anniversary this week. Monday was an ideal day to swap currencies, beginning a new week with new notes and coins. They weren't the ones we have now. We had one and two-dollar notes, as well as one cent, two cent and five cent coins, and they were bigger than those of today. Mind you, they were worth more.
On the day of changeover - and at no time since - the pound was exchanged for two dollars. That was what it was worth that day. It was when you tried to calculate the conversion of coinage that things got complicated and some items, confectionery, for example, became more expensive. The twopenny pack of chewing gum, containing four pieces, sold for two cents - instant inflation. Perhaps the pricing embarrassed Wrigleys because the product was phased out shortly after, leaving the 10-piece pack of Juicy Fruit, Arrowmint or PK the only options.
It was Keith Holyoake's government that conceived the idea of a change back in 1963 and they even had the opposition party, Labour, on their side. Politics was evidently very different in the 1960s. Rob Muldoon was under-secretary for finance and he was appointed to administer the conversion. He convinced everyone the change would be painless and simple. For many people, mainly older folk, it was far from easy, and while it meant calculations would now be a cinch, sometimes just by the shift of a decimal point, people who had spent their lives working with 12 pennies in a shilling, 20 shillings in a pound and 21 shillings in a guinea, found it very difficult.
Extensive ad campaigns made sure most of the country knew when and how it would happen, but no-one thought to actually ask the population what they thought. There were no referenda, and while you could vote for or against prohibition when you voted for your member of Parliament, there was no box to tick if you were ok - or not - with this huge change to metrics. Kiwis did, however, get to vote on selected coin and note designs, an obvious sop to democracy.