Summary of submissions from private individuals
1. On 11 November 2004 the Bank held a press conference and shortly afterwards placed advertisements in all daily newspapers around New Zealand. The Bank asked individual people and interested organisations to send their views on proposed changes to the coinage to the Bank by 4 February 2005. The Bank received 2,050 submissions. These comprised 456 email messages, 124 individual letters, 186 submissions from school students (mainly from primary school classes) and 1,284 form letters (photocopied letters distributed by a third party). Bank staff read and replied to all of them.
2. The Bank contracted AC Nielsen to analyse the feedback received from the general public. The Bank expected that there would be benefits from having an independent assessment of feedback received. Otherwise, some observers might be sceptical of analysis that was conducted only by Bank staff. Also, AC Nielsen has considerable experience in processing and analysing submissions in public policy consultations.
3. The main purpose of the Bank's public consultations was to test its proposals through public scrutiny and to find out if any important issues had been overlooked. The Bank has been pleased to find that no major surprises have emerged from public submissions. Bank staff had already considered all serious suggestions made and they were already aware of the main issues raised as concerns.
4. Some people advanced ideas outside the scope of the proposals, eg relating to designs of coins and the introduction of new denominations (for example a 25 cent or five dollar coin). The Bank's publicity material stated that it had decided (not proposed) to leave designs unchanged and (implicitly) to not introduce new denominations. It is interesting to note the popularity of the tuatara and kiwi designs (and perhaps NZ flora and fauna in general) but the Bank sees no reason to alter its decision to retain the current designs in the meantime. This assists identification of the new coins in the transition phase. The Bank was pleased that its consultation did not prompt widespread debate on issues outside the scope of the proposals.
5. It is important to note that public consultation of this kind does not provide accurate indications of the percentages of people supporting or opposed to proposals. This is because the correspondents are self-selected and are very unlikely to form a representative sample of the population. For the record, though, the balance of views from the general public was as follows.
- Those who expressed an opinion supported the downsizing of the silver coins and the change in composition to plated steel by about two to one.
- Adults who sent individual emails or letters favoured retaining the 5 cent coin by a margin of 58% to 39% with 3% saying they were neutral. Most people who favour withdrawal of the 5 cent coin think it is unnecessary and is a nuisance. Most people who want the Bank to retain the 5 cent coin are concerned that prices will rise if it is removed.
- The Bank received about 300 identical photocopied letters from Grey Power members opposing withdrawal of the 5 cent coin because they expected prices to rise.
- The Bank received over 900 identical letters opposing withdrawal of the 5 cent coin from dairies and small retailers. These were forwarded to the Bank by a confectionery manufacturing company.
- The Bank also received a large number of letters from children as part of primary school projects. These mainly opposed withdrawal of the 5 cent coin, often because some sweets are priced at 5 cents.
Note: The full AC Nielson report on Anaylsis of Public Submissions is also available.