What it does
This Determination, titled the Currency (Royal Australian Mint) Determination 2010 (No. 4), sets mandatory physical specifications for a set of Australian coins. It is a statutory instrument that commences on the day after it is registered (s 2). The Determination defines “Act” to mean the Currency Act 1965 (s 3) and, under s 4(1), operates for the purposes of subsection 13A(1) of that Act. Mechanically, s 4(1) declares that each item in Part 1 of Schedule 1 “specifies, for a coin having the denomination and standard composition mentioned in the item … the coin’s standard weight; the allowable variation from that standard weight; the coin’s dimensions; and the coin’s design (using the symbols explained in Part 2 of Schedule 1).” Section 4(2) preserves other determinations made under the same subsection: this Determination does not affect any other determination of the standard weight and allowable variation, dimensions or design of a coin made under subsection 13A(1).
Part 1 (the table) lists twelve items that prescribe the technical parameters for particular coin denominations and compositions. Those parameters include standard composition (for example, “copper and nickel”, “copper, aluminium and nickel”, “at least 99.9% silver”, “at least 99.99% gold”), standard weight with an allowable variation in grams (for example, “11.30 ± 0.33” g for the 20 cent), maximum diameter and thickness in millimetres (for example, 28.65 mm and 2.52 mm for the 20 cent), the shape symbol (S1), an edge symbol (E1 or E2), an obverse symbol (O1) and a reverse symbol (R1-R11). Part 2 explains the symbols used in Part 1: S1 means circular; E1 means continuously milled; E2 means 14 segments, of which 7 are milled and 7 are plain; O1 is a specific obverse effigy of Queen Elizabeth II with inscriptions (including ‘IRB’ and ‘AUSTRALIA 2011’); and R1-R11 are defined reverse designs (for example R11 describes a $10 gold reverse that includes the legend ‘1/10 oz.9999Au’).