ferris, yes the NAS system being introduced in Australia will include a US FAA style flight following for VFR aircraft. You may remember that this was a major part of the 1991 AMATS design that I was involved in. It was also a major part of Airspace 2000.
In each case Airservices or its predecessor has claimed, “we do not have time to train the controllers.” My suggestion is that if you have some influence at Airservices that you get the management to go ahead, do the training and introduce a proper US style flight following system. Our present Australian designed RAS “one shot” service is completely useless.
I believe the primary reason that flight following has not been introduced into Australia is that it is a workload permitting, no cost service, and the Airservices management is not interested in providing any service that does not make a profit as it will not assist their bonuses.