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Almost 40 per cent of triple-0 calls made to ACT Policing last year were not emergencies (www.abc.net.au)

submitted 3 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Of the almost 40,000 calls to triple-0 received by ACT police in 2024, 36 per cent were related to non-emergency situations.

Police say that included a call from a teenager whose parents had switched off the Wi-fi and a man who wanted police to arrest a stray cat on his street.

Police are urging members of the public to call their non-emergency line 131 444 if an immediate police presence is not required.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 months ago

I think that is another reason why articles like this always choose examples that everyone will agree are frivolous (along with the obvious answer of these being the attention grabbing ones). Mentioning something closer to an actual emergency could well do as you say and put off someone with a problem that sounds similar but is actually important.

Publicising the non-emergency number more would be a good idea I think, it's around but is not something that will come to most people's minds without looking it up. I've never had to call it so I'm not sure how well staffed it is but making sure people ringing the non-emergency line can get answered by a real person in reasonable time to discover what their problem is would be important (even if it's a triage like situation where you get put back on hold for low priority things).