Secret emails have revealed how staff at the Reserve Bank of Australia reacted after learning they had printed 400 million $50 notes with a glaring spelling error.
The RBA was forced to admit the typo on the new state-of-the-art notes after an eagle-eyed member of the public spotted the error last year.
The new note featured microprint of the maiden speech by Edith Cowan, Australia’s first woman to serve as a member of parliament.
But the RBA failed to notice the word ‘responsibility’ was incorrectly spelled ‘responsibilty’ with a missing ‘i’ three times in the text of Cowan’s 1921 speech.
Responsibility was misspelled three times on 46 million $50 notes
RBA’s response to the blunder has been uncovered in a series of emails and an internal report obtained under freedom of information laws.
The report and emails have since been publicly released on the RBA’s website.
It all started on December 20 last year after the RBA was alerted to the glaring error on 46 million notes by an email from an unidentified member of the public.
‘So is this meant to be a new security feature that is not mentioned on your webpage about the new $50 note – or did someone not check the spelling of ‘responsibility’ before sending these to print?’ they wrote.
In its response, the RBA vowed to fix it at the next opportunity.
‘The process of designing and producing a new banknote is extremely complex. The design undergoes checks at numerous stages throughout its development, however, unfortunately it appears that this discrepancy has been introduced in the printing process,’ the response states.
Oblivious to the naked eye, it was seven months before the public was made aware of the error
While Note Printing Australia staff were ‘mortified’, emails have revealed the less concerned response of RBA staff, including RBA governor Philip Lowe who was ‘relatively relaxed’.
‘I spoke to Phil about this,’ RBA’s head of risk and compliance Chris Aylmer wrote on December 21.
‘He was relatively relaxed — the functionality of the note has not changed and it is still legal tender.’
RBA manager Luke Porter wrote in another email: ”At this stage people are calm about it.’
‘I spoke to [redacted] and he was in a bad way. I told him the Bank is OK and don’t stress too much – no one died. [Note Printing Australia] having a bit of a panic.’
Another senior RBA worker revealed staff at Note Printing Australia were ‘devastated and had really been beating themselves up about it.’
‘I said the fact they (printing staff) took such pride in the product was really the main thing, and reiterated the point about it being a relatively minor problem in the scheme of things,’ the RBA worker wrote to another staffer.
It was later revealed the typo had been accidentally added when Cowan’s quote was ‘manually retyped’ into the graphics software, which wasn’t picked up by NPA, Banknote Projects and Banknote Quality during a capability trial in early 2017.
RBA governor Philip Lowe was ‘relatively relaxed’ about the glaring mistake on the banknotes
WHO IS EDITH COWAN
Edith Cowan (nee Brown) became Australia’s first female parliamentarian in 1921.
Born in Geraldton WA in 1861, she played a crucial role in winning the vote for women in Western Australia and at the age of 60 entered parliament, where she was instrumental in opening the legal and other professions to women.
However, she lost her seat at the 1924 election and failed to regain it in 1927.
Cowan died in Perth in 1932, aged 70.
She has featured on the reverse of Australia’s 50-dollar note since 1995 and her maiden speech features on the new $50 notes.
The full excerpt from Ms Cowan’s speech reads: ‘I stand here today in the unique position of being the first woman in an Australian parliament. It is a great responsibility to be the only woman here and I want to emphasise the necessity which exists for other women being here. If men and women can work for the state side-by-side and represent all different sections of the community, I cannot doubt that we should do very much better work in the community than was ever done before.’
Edith Cowan was Australia’s first female parliamentarian
‘The graphical software package used by [Note Printing Australia] has no copy-paste mechanism and no spelling or grammar check. The text was manually typed in.
‘The text was reviewed by NPA as a part of their standard processes, however, the error was not picked up at this point.’
There are no plans to pull the notes from circulation, despite the bungle.
‘The error is being corrected as part of a normal print run so there is no additional cost,’ an RBA spokeswoman said last month.
‘We are not withdrawing or recalling banknotes with the spelling error. They will remain in circulation until they reach their normal end-of-life.’
The next schedule is expected to take place between November 2019 and March 2020, where 220 million notes will be distributed, according to the RBA report.
There are no plans by the RBA to pull the $50 notes from circulation, despite the mistake
Federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg boasted about the banknote’s extensive security features at the time of its release.
‘This latest and important upgrade not only marks a hugely significant step towards equal access to society for people who are blind or have low vision, but also incorporates new, innovative security features that further protect against counterfeiting,’ Mr Frydenberg said.
‘The application of the tactile features to the $50 note is particularly important given that it’s the most widely circulated banknote, with 46 per cent of all banknotes in circulation being the $50 note.
‘I believe, the implementation of the tactile features would have made David Unaipon and Edith Cowan proud.’