The Cape Barren Island Reserve Act 1945 had the full title ‘An Act to consolidate and amend the law relating to the Cape Barren Island Reserve’. It repealed the Cape Barren Island Reserve Act 1912 and imposed stricter conditions on those living on the Cape Barren Island Reserve. Residents now had to live continuously in their houses for nine months of the year, and were required to show ‘substantial improvements’ to the land they leased. The Act forced the inhabitants to become self-sufficient agricultralists or to leave the island. The Act expired in 1951 and the Reserve was closed.