X-Nico

26 unusual facts about Australian dollar


1970–71 Ashes series

Farmers donated barley, wheat, oats, timber, sheep and cattle to be sold for the fund, one town built and sold a house and the racehorse La Loire made $18,000 in a raffle.

John Edrich was awarded $200 as Man of the Match by the England umpire Charlie Elliott because "without John's 82 there'd have been no match".

Test status was granted to the WACA for the 1970–71 Ashes series and although its playing conditions were equal to any in Australia $400,000 was raised to build extra stands and improve the facilities.

42,376 people attended the match over the five days, paying $36,612.10 at the gate.

1974 WANFL season

East Perth move within half a game of the four in a match where Claremont not only lost the game by half time when they remanied goalless but also lost A$1119 in property and $458 in cash due to negligence.

1988 Tooheys 1000

Due to FISA regulations the Top 10 run-off was not for Pole Position in 1988, but only for AUD$40,000 in prizemoney.

Abaiang Atoll Airport

Flights to both destinations take only ten minutes, and cost 29 and 27 Australian dollars respectively.

Abemama Atoll Airport

The airport is served by Air Kiribati from the international airport at South Tarawa on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays; a one-way ticket costs A$45.00.

Albion, Queensland

In wealth terms, the median weekly individual income in Albion is approximately A$200 higher than the Australian average, and a median weekly family income A$220 higher.

Avoca, Victoria

(It has been estimated that £100 in the 1920s was roughly equivalent to A$8000 in 1998.) Avoca, too small to be allocated a gun for a war trophy, built a monument on a scale suitable for the largest twenty per cent of communities.

Cao Lãnh Bridge

The bridge will be the largest overseas assistance project undertaken by the Australian government costing A$160 million.

Grand Duchy of Avram

Eventually, after a total of six court cases, costing the federal government some A$22 million, the courts ruled that The Grand Duke of Avram had not engaged in any illegal activity, and ordered the return of all the confiscated property, however some disappeared in Federal Custody and later appeared on the market.

History of Papua New Guinea

Valued at A$760 million, the program was to tackle crime and corruption in PNG by sending 200 Australian police to Port Moresby and installing 40 Australian officials within the national bureaucracy.

Kangaroo Flat railway station

A $350,000 upgrade of the station was announced in February 2008, involved the construction of a new booking office, 50 bay car park, bus interchange, and refurbishment of the waiting room.

Lebbeus

It includes a species whose name was auctioned in 2009 to raise funds for conservation; Luc Longley won with a bid of A$3,600, and named the shrimp Lebbeus clarehanna.

Myiasis

Blowfly strike accounts for over A$170 million a year in losses in the Australian sheep industry, the largest such losses in the world.

Neil Bonnett

Neil Bonnett holds the distinction of being the winner of the first ever NASCAR race held outside of North America when he won the 1988 Goodyear NASCAR 500 at the A$54 million Calder Park Thunderdome in Melbourne, Australia (at the time the newly opened Thunderdome was also the first NASCAR style speedway to be built outside of North America).

Penalty unit

In earlier times, fines and other charges were usually prescribed in terms of ordinary money (pounds or later dollars).

Redcliffe Bridge

The bridge was constructed using an incremental launch technique, and cost A$15 million to complete.

Sara-Marie Fedele

The surgery apparently cost $14,050 and was featured on TV series Body Work.

Searoad Ferries

The cost for travelling across the service with a car is approximately A$45, depending on season and passengers; the alternative to drive from Queenscliff to Sorrento via road is approximately four hours.

The Dream with Roy and HG

When auctioned for charity at the end of the series, Fatso was purchased by Seven Network CEO Kerry Stokes for A$80,450.

Tim Paine

At 16, Paine became Australian domestic cricket's youngest-ever contracted player when he received a basic A$10,000 rookie contract with Tasmania—an innovation in Australian cricket.

Victorian Railways A2 class

Modified Front End was an extremely cost effective improvement given that it allowed the VR to defer new locomotive construction through improvements to existing locomotives that at the time cost just £140 ($280) per locomotive.

West End Slowdown

The games have been generally well supported with crowds of around 10-15,000 attending most games, though some games such as Slowdown VI in 2005 saw a crowd of around 25,000 with the entry fee being only a gold coin donation (A$1 or $2) with all gate takings going to the Little Heroes Foundation.

White Bay Hotel

The New South Wales Government purchased the site in June 2010 for A$2.5 million.


Arthur Streeton

Golden Summer, Eaglemont sold for around 1000 guineas in 1924 and in the 1980s it was bought in a private sale by the National Gallery of Australia for US$3.5 million, both times setting a sales record for an Australian painting.

Charles Rappolt

After his recovery he sought A$295 000 in damages from the Queensland government, arguing that his stint in Parliament had left him a psychotic manic depressive.

Floating exchange rate

In the modern world, most of the world's currencies are floating; such currencies include the most widely traded currencies: the United States dollar, the euro, the Norwegian krone, the Japanese yen, the British pound, the Swiss franc, and the Australian dollar.

Great Victorian Rail Trail

On 29 April 2009, the Federal Government announced that it would contribute A$13.2 million from its community infrastructure program out of the estimated total cost of A$14.2 million needed for the completion of the trail as an economic stimulus and as part of the recovery effort in the wake of the 2009 Victorian bushfires.

Hobart International Airport

During December 2007, the Tasmanian Government sold the Tasmanian Ports Corporation-owned subsidiary for A$350 million to the Tasmanian Gateway Consortium, a private consortium made up of Macquarie Capital (one of Macquarie Group's infrastructure funds) and Tasmania's public sector superannuation fund, the Retirement Benefits Fund.

John Juanda

In January 2006, Juanda defeated a field including Jeff Lisandro, Mike Sexton, Barry Greenstein, Tony Bloom, Tony G and Phil Ivey to win the A$1,000,000 ($732,901) first prize in the Crown Australian Poker Championship A$100,000 speed poker event.

Reinaldo Elias da Costa

During the 2012 January transfer window, it was announced that Chinese Super League club Beijing Guoan had bought the striker from Saudi Club Al-Raed for a reported $2 million over two years.

Southport Courthouse

It houses courtrooms and chambers for part of the District Court of Queensland, which has jurisdiction to hear petty crimes and civil matters up to A$750,000.

Soviet Union–Tonga relations

The Australian government thereupon announced that it would finance the airport's upgrade after all and, in 1977, increased its overall economic aid to Tonga (from A$406,000 to over A$1,000,000), before opening a High Commission in Nukuʻalofa in 1980.

Tenix

By the early 1980s, Transfield had in excess of 3,000 employees and an annual turnover of A$350 million.When visiting Australia in 1986 Pope John Paul II toured the Transfield factory located at Seven Hills.

William Porteous

In December 2009 he sold a property in Mosman Park, Western Australia for A$57.5 million, setting a record for the most expensive house ever sold in Australia.