POWERHOUSE COLLECTION

Petrol ration ticket issued in Australia

Object No. 2002/60/2

Conditions in Australia during the Second World War necessitated civilian rationing of a number of commodities including: clothing; various foodstuffs such as sugar, butter, meat and tea; as well as tobacco, liquor and petrol. The reasons for this rationing were various. Clothing was rationed due to the serious falling off in imports, increased Service demands and reduced labour for local production of textiles and the making up of garments. The necessity of supplying foodstuffs to the United Kingdom and the Australian and Allied Services saw the rationing of sugar, butter and meat while reduction in imports due to the enemy occupation of Java meant rationing of tea. However, the first rationing experienced in Australia was in May 1940 when limits were placed on newsprint. Newspaper publishers had to bring out smaller papers and for many years it meant the end of the evening paper. The first time petrol rationing was enforced in Australia was in October 1940, a little over twelve months after the commencement of the war. Although the cuts were not very drastic, petrol was rationed with privately owned cars being restricted to travelling the equivalent of about 5000 km a year. This measure, however, had little impact on most people's lives until the restrictions were considerably tightened the following year commencing at the beginning of April 1941 when replenishment stocks from overseas supplies became increasingly difficult to procure. Progressive reductions in the monthly allowances to civilian users were made, the basic ration being finally reduced to the equivalent of only 800 miles of running per annum. The period of severest rationing lasted from late 1941 until towards the end of 1944. Under the regulations, private motorists received a complicated scheme of coupons which entitled owners to a monthly ration of petrol based on the engine power of each car. Petrol rationing resulted in a sudden reliance on public transport systems, which were ill-equipped to cope with the pressure. Many car owners gave up their vehicles altogether and garaged them for the duration of the war. Some attached unwieldy, hazardous and heavily polluting gas-producers to their cars or had special racks attached to the roof to accommodate cumbersome gas-filled containers. To relieve the gloom, newspapers sometimes carried optimistic (but unrealized) reports about potential increases in local petrol production. One report, in June 1941, mentioned a motor fuel developed from eucalyptus oil, citing a government-sponsored report it claimed that in some areas eucalyptus plantations could profitably replace sheep raising! With the improvement in the war situation in 1944, it was found possible, without making any specific amendment to the rationing schedules, to grant claims for additional allowances of petrol to individual cases where circumstances were justified. Even with the end of the War and the Japanese surrender on 15 August 1945, there was an atmosphere of anticlimax mixed with the jubilation as the continuation of rationing and postwar shortages tended to sour the sweet taste of victory. The first general increase in the ration scales was made in September 1945, when the allowances to private motorists and primary producers increased by twenty five percent. A similar increase was made a month later to 120 miles of running per month, followed by 270 miles from December 1945 and 240 miles in July 1946. Industrial trouble affecting railway and tramway services in some states, necessitating road haulage, used up further dwindling supplies and saw a continuation of rationing in Australia. Shortages worldwide continued and the increasing fuel costs further deteriorated the situation. Petrol rationing finally came to a conclusion at the end in June 1949.