The Joint Agency Coordination Center has not gotten off to a good start if Wednesday's effort is anything to go on.

For journalists here in Perth covering the search for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, information has been fed through the PR machine at the Australian Maritime Safety Authority, or AMSA, in Canberra that is still coordinating the sea and air search but not the flow of information.

That responsibility has now been handed off to the JACC, which was announced on Sunday by Prime Minister Tony Abbott, who named retired former Australian defense force chief Angus Houston as its head.