5c Coin to be Scrapped???

[csv8]

Retailers fear backlash if five-cent coin axed
Jessica Wright
June 26, 2011

Tossing the coin ...
HIGH metal prices and inflation have combined to threaten the five-cent coin with extinction.

And while there is not much love lost between retailers and Australia's littlest coin, the industry is likely to be concerned that under such a radical shake-up they could be bear the brunt of a consumer backlash.

There have been past murmurings about the coin's future.


But The Sun-Herald can reveal that the cost of making the five-cent coin now far outstrips its face value.

A source from inside the nation's currency maker, the Royal Australian Mint, said the coin was increasingly ''redundant'' in the currency pecking order.

Now, the Assistant Treasurer, Bill Shorten, is considering the Mint's advice to scrap it.

Retailers have recently had something to say about the coin. Last month the Australian Retailers Association's executive director, Russell Zimmerman, reportedly said the five-cent coin was less relevant in today's economy.

But he cautioned that scrapping the coin would impact most on small retailers.

Under Australian law, it is legal for shopkeepers or businesses to refuse to accept payment in any form of currency, and many services and stores have already put in place a ban on the five-cent piece.

Parking, phone and vending machines have already ceased accepting the tender and many other everyday services were moving rapidly away from cash transactions, especially from small-coin denominations.

The Australian Vending Association's president, Phil Barry, told the ABC earlier this year the coin was now regarded as an endangered species. ''We've got rid of five cents out of vending machines,'' he said. ''The way vending machines are going is the note reader … and credit card readers.''

The consumer group Choice has said that a move to scrap the small piece of metal would be welcomed by a majority of the public, who considered it a nuisance. But it has previously called on the government to prioritise guidelines for retailers to round down rather than up if the coin was scrapped, saying every five cents added to the soaring cost of living.

''Consumers might regard the decision to round up a cost they shouldn't have to bear,'' said the National Retail Association's executive director, Gary Black.

The national president of the United Retailers Federation, Scott Driscoll, was reported as saying last month that associated changes in prices would spark a ''crisis in confidence''.

''Our biggest problem now is getting confidence back in the retail sector and we don't need another hurdle with people thinking they're getting stung down to their last five cents.''