During the Great Depression, the Australian pound became devalued, no longer worth the same as the pound sterling, and formally departed from the gold standard with the Commonwealth Bank Act of 1932.[1] Legislation in 1945 led to regulation of private banks which H.C. Coombs was opposed to, and when he became governor in 1949, he gave them more overall control over their institutions.[2][3] When the monetary authorities implemented the advice of Coombs to have a flexible interest rate, it allowed the bank to rely more on open market operations.[7] In 1980 the issue of short-term government bonds – Treasury notes of 13 and 26 weeks duration – changed from a tap system, in which the price was set, to a tender system in which the volume of stock was set and the price determined by the market.