Editing to add that more detail, since I’m basically contradicting your memory of how it worked:
I’m fairly certain it didn’t work if you dialled out, so you may not have come across the circumstances to test it. Also, the other person would probably also need to be participating in testing it, because otherwise they will hang up as soon as you do.
I’ve just remembered another detail - I think there was something different about the tone you heard. If you received a call, and the other person hung up, you would hear the disconnected beeps. If you made a call, and the recipient hung up, I think you would hear the disconnection, but then just silenced.
By the way - I was also confused by seeing how phones seemed to work in the US - like pushing the hang up sensors (is there a name for these?) once to switch lines for call waiting. I never really connected their strange behaviour with how the phones in Aussie worked.
Actually, is this all related to party lines? I’m fairly sure Aussie had these. NZ did.
Some other comments said there was a timeout after which the call was disconnected if the receiver hangs up.
Well, a few decades ago (80s-90s), at least, landlines sure did work like that in Australia, if you were the one who received the call. I played around with that a lot as a kid. Maybe you just tried it on calls you initiated?
On the shows they would sometimes hang up the phone, then somebody else picked up a receiver and the call continued?? Phones don't work like that! Go try it on your real phone, and you'll see!
It never occurred to me that US phones worked differently than Aussie phones.
The fact I was so bothered by this probably says an awful lot about what sort of person I was as a child. Its no accident I fell in love with computers.