‘Is it illegal to own a baby kangaroo’: Territorians waste Triple-0 phone operators time

Territorians are wasting emergency call takers’ time, clogging up the 000 queue with trivial matters police fear could put lives at risk. Listen to some of the ridiculous calls.

If your neighbour has borrowed your phone charger and not returned it, don’t call triple-0.

Do not call to ask NT Police for lifts, for court dates, and especially don’t use the emergency line to ask if you are allowed to own a baby kangaroo.

There are other numbers for that.

One call from a woman outside a Katherine school tried to tell police it was an emergency her dogs were stuck inside a building.

In another call, a man phoned 000 asking about a power outage, inquiring when the lights would be back on.

These real-life examples of non-urgent calls join a long list of other bizarre instances where people have used the national emergency hotline unnecessarily, consuming precious resources.

From Kulgera to the Tiwi Islands, the Joint Emergency Services Communication Centre answers Territory wide calls for help.

To put it simply, the 000 number should be used if human life is in danger or a crime is happening immediately.

But JESCC Officer-in-Charge Craig Dunlop said the phone number burned in every Australian’s head was misused “daily”.

JESCC takes every single triple-0 call made in the Northern Territory. Picture: Floss Adams.

“We want to try and reduce people from ringing 000 when it’s not urgent because each second is important,” Senior Sergeant Dunlop said.

“If we’ve got people on the phone who are taking up a minute to two minutes of information that is no good to us, it could affect someone’s life who is trying to get through and can’t get through.”

When a caller has been connected to a phone operator, the call-taker will never hang up, the person who dialled the call must hang up the phone.

Manned by auxiliary police communications specialists, the bustling JESCC in the Peter McAuley Centre fields calls for help across all emergency services including St John Ambulance, fire and police.

The team answers a monthly average of 14,000 triple-0 calls.

JESCC Police auxiliary call taker Ariel P can answer anywhere up to 15 triple-0 calls an hour. Picture: Floss Adams.

Sergeant Dunlop said he could not estimate how many resources was wasted on non-urgent calls filling up the 000 queue a year.

“What we ask the public to do is to consider why they need police and if it’s a life endangering situation to then always call triple-0,” he said.

Sergeant Dunlop said if the matter was happening in front of you to phone 000 but if the matter happened hours or even days ago, phone 131 444.

He said 131 444 was the non-urgent number “so police can put a job on and we can deal with it at a later time”.

While using the 000 line for an emergency, follow the phone operators instructions and clearly provide the information required with concision.