Housewives scramble to create delicious, nutritious dinners on just £6/9/7, (or $474.42 in today's currency), the average weekly wage for men in 1945.

That kitchen staple, The Australian Women's Weekly, is at the ready with a number of recipes.

Anything from "mock ham" and "meatless sausage" to dishes using rabbit and offal (neither of which are rationed and are relatively common).

Invariably, housewives walk or catch a bus to the local butcher shop (the first supermarket in Australia wasn't built until 1960).

In tow are probably three children (the average Australian family in 1945 is three children, a mother and father) and if there is a baby, it will be in a buggy carriage pram.

Mothers often park their prams outside the shops while they are shopping.

While Mum struggles with the kids, the shopping and the housework, Dad probably drives to work in either a Ford or Holden (which cost the equivalent of $23,600 in today's currency).

A home in the 'burbs is the aspiration of the average Australian family. The "Waterfall" design of home, which evolved from the 1930s, is popular, with its curved corner windows, venetian blinds, dark brown glazed feature brickwork and stepped or plain chimneys.

But the biggest change Australians face as war draws to a close is the influx of migrants from war-torn countries.

More than 4 million immigrants arrived here between 1945 and 1985, about 40 per cent of whom came from Britain and Ireland.

A federal Department of Immigration is set up to administer a large-scale immigration program.

It will be the first time Mums encounter salamis and other mysterious meats at the butcher's.