History
Prior to 1969, Australia did not have a national number for emergency services; the police, fire and ambulance services possessed many phone numbers, one for each local unit. In 1961, the office of the Postmaster General (PMG) introduced the Triple Zero (000) number in major population centres and near the end of the 1980s extended its coverage to nationwide. The number Triple Zero (000) was chosen for several reasons: technically, it suited the dialling system for the most remote automatic exchanges, particularly outback Queensland. These communities used the digit 0 to select an automatic trunk line to a centre. In the most remote communities, two 0s had to be used to reach a main centre; thus dialling 0+0, plus another 0 would call (at least) an operator. Zero is closest to the finger stall on Australian rotary dial phones, so it was easy to dial in darkness.
911 was previously considered as a potential emergency number, though existing numbering arrangements make this unfeasible due to homes and businesses being assigned numbers beginning with 911 .
Read more about this topic: 000 Emergency
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