Where "Not the Full Quid" Comes From
"Quid" was everyday slang for the pre-decimal Australian pound. Australia switched from pounds, shillings and pence to dollars and cents on 14 February 1966 — but "quid" stuck around in speech long after the coins themselves disappeared. "The full quid" meant a whole, intact pound; being "not the full quid" meant coming up short of that — a shortfall that got applied figuratively to someone not being fully all there mentally.
It's squarely part of the same family as a few snags short of a barbie and couldn't organise a chook raffle — all different ways of framing the same joke as a shortfall against a simple, everyday standard.
Source:
"He signed without reading it - not the full quid, that fella."
How Aussies Actually Use It
It's used, usually with some sympathy, to describe someone who's a bit slow or naive rather than genuinely unintelligent.
It sits in the same family as "a few roos loose in the top paddock" and "not playing with a full deck."
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