5 Dollars

New Zealand switched from paper to polymer for its entire circulating series in 1999, contracting Note Printing Australia — a subsidiary of the Reserve Bank of Australia — to produce notes for a direct economic competitor. The arrangement was entirely practical: NPA had pioneered Guardian polymer substrate with the Reserve Bank of Australia and offered the technology commercially before any other printer could match it.

Three governors signed across the sixteen-year run of P#185, with Wheeler's signature appearing only briefly before the redesigned Brighter Money series displaced the issue in 2015.