Here’s why parity with the Australian dollar is a big deal.

It means we’ve come of age.

We’ve grown up.

We’re a real player.

Whether we’re a bit over or a bit under doesn’t really matter - for all intents and purposes we are buck for buck.

You need to know very little about economics to understand that when you’re dealing with two freely floated currencies traded all over the world by people who buy and sell them based on their perceived value.

If you’re running buck for buck with someone like Australia, you are doing brilliantly well and it’s a sign of success and a reason to celebrate.

We should spend a bit of time thinking about this, because we seemed happy enough to spend plenty of time bemoaning our lot when things weren’t that flash.

Back when our dollar bought nothing, back when we flooded out of the country in record numbers.

Back when the jobs and opportunities were all in Australia.

And out of that came the confidence, the over whelming belief that Aus was not only bigger it was better.

It was superior in every way.

Back when we had that tragic little debate about us joining them as a state, about us getting hold of their currency.

The people who argued against it said we couldn’t cope. It’s one thing to join a string currency but you’ve got to be strong enough infrastructure-wise to be able to cope with it.

They doubted we were, and all of that all of those overwhelming stats and figures and numbers and beliefs have been in my lifetime.  

Aus was that large flash place that seemed in the first world while we were this little island nation plodding along aspiring for bigger brighter better things, but constantly reminded we were in Australia’s shadow.

So every reason then to celebrate our dollar.

Because our dollar is more than a currency. It’s an accumulation of what we’ve built, of what we offer the world, of how the world sees us.

It’s our fiscal calling card, and at buck for buck it’s a platinum card with no limit, accepted wherever we go.

It speaks to our reputation our outlook our discipline.

The same way the Amercians have had to endure half a dozen years of their dollar being ridiculed and second guessed, we're in the luxurious position of it being in demand.

We’re never going to be a global currency, not like a greenback.

But in a world where small island nations are generally seen as second rate if not dodgy, shaky, if not corrupt, here we are boxing with the big boys and, at this point anyway, out gunning them.

Australia is vulnerable. Not forever, not terminally, but they are showing signs of real structural weakness, and by comparison we aren’t.

So good on us.