KEY POINTS:
The appearance of Sir Edmund Hillary on New Zealand's $5 banknote broke a longstanding international convention - but it was a decision former Reserve Bank Governor Don Brash never came to regret.
Sir Ed was put on the note in the early 1990s, after a process which began
with the public putting forward suggestions of who they thought should appear on the country's revamped currency.
Sir Ed was a strong suggestion, but he was quickly dismissed by the ultimate decision-maker, Dr Brash, because he was still alive.
Internationally, it was rare to put a living person who was not a head of state on a banknote, because of a fear that the person could go on to embarrassingly blot their copybook.
Dr Brash came up with a plan to put the Queen on the most-used note, the $20.
He had ideas for all of the other notes except the $5, which he decided to dedicate to a dead sportsperson.
But after examining options, Dr Brash eventually became perplexed - none seemed to him to fit correctly with the faces on the other notes, or just didn't seem to be of enough stature.
Two things influenced his decision to go with Sir Ed. "One was what I call my dinner party test," Dr Brash recalled yesterday.
"At dinner parties I'd say to people, 'Who do you think should be on our bank notes?' " he said.
"And before I could explain to people that the person had to be dead, most people would say, 'Well of course Hillary has to be on one of them'."
The second influence came during a visit to Singapore, when he saw a TV ad featuring Sir Ed walking through the grounds of a hotel, without a voiceover or a caption.
Dr Brash turned to his brother-in-law and said he knew that New Zealanders would recognise Sir Ed, but Singaporeans?
His brother-in-law said, "We all know who he is", and Dr Brash realised Sir Ed was the best-known New Zealander outside the country.
"I decided, to hell with the convention, I would put Ed Hillary on the note," he said.
With the decision made, an approach had to be made to Sir Ed to make sure he was happy with the idea.
Dr Brash tried to phone the mountaineer at home but learned through Lady June that Sir Ed was in Europe.
"I rang him there. Despite everyone telling me he would reject the issue out of hand, he said, 'Thank you very much, I'm very flattered and I'd be happy to be on the note'."
Sir Ed then had some input into the design, opting to put Mt Cook on it and a Massey Ferguson tractor, which illustrated his historic drive overland to the South Pole.
Dr Brash said the appearance on the note was a tribute not only to Sir Ed's mountaineering and exploring achievements, but his diplomatic and humanitarian efforts too.
The Reserve Bank's current governor, Alan Bollard, paid tribute to Sir Ed yesterday and a wreath was laid outside the bank's museum window.
