Memo to Telstra

From the ABC comes an article about just one of the world's daily tragedies.

The South Australian Coroner Wayne Chivell has heard a young mother dialled 911 when she discovered her infant son unconscious in the bath.

Coroner Chivell today delivered his findings into the death of seven-month-old Christopher John Smith at Elizabeth East, in Adelaide's north, in November 2002.

He referred to evidence from Amanda Hamlyn who said she dialled 911 when she found her son Christopher in the bath.

This is the emergency number used in the United States.

She had no success with that number.

In Australia the emergency number is 000.

A suggestion : bearing in mind that in real emergencies, people tend to panic - to act instinctively rather than calmly and rationally; and bearing in mind that a lot of people may not actually know the 000 number, nor have a phone book handy to look it up (on the first page in BIG FRIENDLY LETTERS); and bearing in mind that we have a lot of Americans visit the joint; and finally, bearing in mind that due to Coca-Colonisation of the airwaves, most kids are likely to know 911 as an emergency number; then wouldn't it be an idea to route all calls to 911 to the 000 service? And maybe the 999 ones as well, to cater for all our Pom visitors? Even a recorded message telling them to dial 000 in case of emergency would do the job.

Just a thought.