Australia faces a massive debt problem while its bank notes have become moribund and archaic. Enter Joe Hockey's ingenious plan to kill two birds with one stone, writes Ben Pobjie.

A federal budget is always a wonderful opportunity to embrace change and generate exciting new ideas, and it's no surprise that with Renaissance man Joe Hockey in charge, this year's budget is set to be jam-packed with innovation and fun.

One of the greatest ideas that's been floated is that of selling the Royal Australian Mint. It's one of those plans that seems insane until you think about it a bit, and then still seems insane, but eventually if you close your eyes and sit in a quiet room for long enough, begins to make a brilliant kind of sense.

After all, why shouldn't the people making our money make some money for us? Right now, we don't really get much from the Mint apart from currency - by selling it off, the Australian people will get a huge windfall and some bold entrepreneur can make the production of our money more efficient by doing whatever it is that entrepreneurs do to make things more efficient. Like robots or internet fridges or something.

The simple fact is that for too long the production of money in Australia has been failing to pull its weight, and it's a relief that the Government is prepared to address this, not just through the sale of the Mint but via other measures, the most fascinating of which is the new scheme to produce an entire new line of banknotes to reflect modern Australia, bearing faces of prominent Australians, the identities of whom have been determined by secret auction.

Even without the public revenue aspect, this is a good idea: Australia's banknotes have become moribund and archaic.

Rebecca Gibney went dollar-for-dollar with Barnaby Joyce only to be trumped by a mystery bidder. ( Quinn Rooney: Getty Images )

Look at the five-dollar note: the Queen. Now what relevance does the Queen have to everyday life in Australia? If it was a picture of Kate Middleton one could understand, but I'm sure I'm not the only one who cringes with nausea every time someone uses a five, barely able to stand the obeisance to outdated authority and unearned privilege that the act entails.

And as for the rest of the notes - who even are they? That guy, and whatshername, and the dude with the beanie. Are these randoms really the faces we want representing us in the world of commerce? Wouldn't it be better to update them with some more recognisable and important citizens, and make a bit of money by doing so?

I think so, and I think all Australians will agree, especially once they see the results of the auction, which are to be publicly announced later this year but which can be revealed here now, having been leaked to this journalist by sources in the Treasurer's office, specifically around the desk area.

The first note to be sold was of course the five, the rights to which went for a modest $15,670. Few of the nation's high-rollers were that interested in appearing on the five, understandably given its status as the poorest and most weaselly of notes. In the end, the rights went to former rugby league superstar Andrew "ET" Ettingshausen, whose winning bid covered both sides of the note, meaning the obverse will bear his face, while the reverse will depict his classically-sculpted torso wrestling a shark.

The 10 attracted a lot more interest, with bids quickly approaching six figures - no wonder as the 10 is an extremely prestigious note in this country, being the denomination on which our original constitution was written. In the end the first side of the note sold for $101,000, to John Farnham, and the opposite side for $98,400, to Redfoo. So it'll be a sort of musically themed note.

The 20, which under the new scheme will be purple, brought in big bucks for government coffers. The front sold for an astounding $987,654, the bidding race getting quite hostile for a while as Rebecca Gibney went dollar for dollar with Barnaby Joyce, before both were trumped by a mystery bidder, later revealed to be Aussie Home Loans founder John Symond. An offer to pay an extra 50K to install a chip in all 20s which would say "At Aussie, we'll save you!" every time you took one out of your wallet was rejected as impractical. The other side of the 20 went for even more, an early bid for $1.2 million sweeping all comers, and so the 20 will bear Symond on one side and ex-Sunrise host Mel Doyle on the other.

Noted Australian poet Gina Rinehart will have her face on the $100 note. ( AAP: Tony McDonough, file photo )

Oddly enough, the $50 note fetched a lower price than the 20, perhaps because of the Government's decision that the new 50 will be hexagonal and fringed. Still, a bid of $567,000 saw Deni Hines, with the backing of a consortium of banks, get on one side, and $523,000 won the reverse for newspaper magnate Kerry Stokes, who surprisingly specified that he would give his spot on the note away to Kerri-Anne Kennerley. When asked why, an angry Stokes left the room abruptly.

Obviously the hundred is the jewel in the crown of Australian currency, and the one which all the big names are after. The right to appear on our biggest denomination attracted bids from such luminaries as Lindsay Fox, Gerry Harvey, Gail Kelly, Lachlan Murdoch, John Ibrahim, Eddie McGuire and of course Scott Cam. But one by one they dropped away until, with bids topping $10 million, only two combatants were left: noted poet Gina Rinehart and Jim from Jim's Mowing. It seemed likely that Jim's familiar visage would be the one, until, distracted by a bee that flew into his mouth, he failed to counter Rinehart's $11.4m bid, and so Gina's face became the one to represent Big Money in Australia, with one of her poems underneath it. At first it was thought that Jim would gain the right to appear on the other side, but as it happened the reverse of the hundred is required by law to contain a treasure map, so that was that.

The new notes will be out in November. It's going to be a hell of a lot fun buying stuff with them, I'm sure you'll agree. Maybe we'll develop some charming slang around them, like, "that'll be a Gina, thanks", or "Do you have two Redfoos for a Mel?"

But the most important thing is that the revenue from the public auction will help ease the budget emergency and forestall the savage cuts in MPs' trouser allowance that some had predicted. All in all, our money is turning out to be a nice little earner.

Ben Pobjie is a writer, comedian and poet with no journalistic qualifications whatsoever. View his full profile here.