Alice Dempster

The rule was that drivers with odd numbered license plates would alternate days with drivers with even numbered license plates in terms of when they could fill up.

There were no long term supply issues and the fuel rationing lasted only weeks, not years.

And those suppliers rely on oil imports from the Middle East.

And more broadly, the world's reliance on oil from the Middle East is also much greater now than it was in the late 70s.

The chief economist for ComBank, Luke Yeaman, says that only 5% to 7% of the world's global oil supply was affected in the 1970s.

It's now more like 15%.

We don't really know what that will look like for sure.

Reporting from the ABC says the government has only really planned for that happening if we get down to 10 days of fuel.

At the moment, we're well over 30 days.

It would likely, and we stress likely, be something where you'd only be able to buy a certain dollar value of fuel, so $40 or $50 at a time, that sort of thing.

That's for everyday motorists, so...

We should say that while the government has a four-stage fuel security plan, it doesn't mention fuel rationing anywhere.

But it's supposedly only if we get to stage four that it's likely to become a thing.

And we're currently only at stage two.

So we're still playing the waiting game to find out whether it's a minor shock like it was in the late 70s or a major economic earthquake like in the 1940s.

And that's our shortcut to the history of fuel rationing in Australia.

As a recommendation this week, I'm going to point you to an episode of the ABC's If You're Listening.

It gets right into the background of what happened the last time we ran out of oil.

I'll put links to both of those in the episode notes.

Thanks for listening and remember to share this episode with your mates who want to hear the backstory to the big news stories.