A Brighton man who attempted to pay a parking fine entirely in five-cent coins has been advised by the council that he is legally entitled to pay only $5 of it that way, a limit imposed by the Currency Act 1965 that he described as "a surprise, given I've been collecting them since 2009."
The fine, issued after his car was parked eleven minutes past the limit on Bay Street, was for $99. The man arrived at the council's customer service counter with a Bunnings bucket containing, by his own count, 1,980 five-cent coins.
"It's a legitimate form of payment," he said. "It's Australian currency. I've been saving them in the garage since I got a dishwasher. There's nothing wrong with five-cent pieces."
Under section 16 of the Act, payments made using combinations of 5, 10, 20 and 50 cent coins are legal tender only up to a total of $5. Beyond that amount, a creditor is not required to accept them.
"She said the council would accept a hundred of them," he said. "A hundred out of nineteen hundred and eighty. I've counted these twice."
The counter staff member, who asked not to be named, said she had never encountered the situation before and consulted a supervisor, who consulted a printout.
"He was very polite," she said. "He kept saying, 'I'm not trying to cause a problem.' And I believe him. He had labelled the bags."
The man ultimately paid $94 by card and left the $5 worth of five-cent coins with the council, which has since logged the transaction as "unusual." He took the remaining 1,880 coins home, where they are back in the garage, in the bucket.
"It was a useful thing to learn," he said. "I do now know that if I'd saved them in $1 and $2 coins, I could have paid up to ten times the face value."
Asked whether he plans to make the switch, he said he was thinking about it, but that the five-cent coins "do have a sort of character."