1 Dollar - Elizabeth II HMAS AE1

AE1 was Australia's first submarine, acquired from Britain in 1914 and lost just weeks after the outbreak of World War I — vanishing off the coast of New Guinea on 14 September 1914 with all 35 crew. No distress signal, no wreckage, no explanation for over a century. The wreck was finally located in 2017 by a joint Australian-Papua New Guinean search expedition, lying in roughly 300 metres of water near East New Britain.

This issue follows Niue's established practice of licensing the Australian War Memorial's commemorative program, producing legal tender coins for a jurisdiction with no direct historical connection to the subject.