VILLERS-BRETONNEUX, France, July 22 AAP - A new World War I interpretative centre at the Australian National Memorial in northern France is on time and on budget for opening on Anzac Day 2018, Veterans' Affairs Minister Dan Tehan says.
The minister inspected work on the site of the Sir John Monash Centre at the memorial near Villers-Bretonneux on Friday.
The project, initiated under the Abbott government with a budget of $100 million, will result in a centre designed to inform visitors of the Australian experience on the Western Front in World War I.
Mr Tehan, who is in France for centenary commemorations for the Battles of Fromelles and Pozieres in which thousands of Australian soldiers died, said it was a project Australia needed to provide a central information point.
"This will give us a real Australian landmark where people can come, learn about our history, learn about what occurred here and then go and explore the rest of the Western Front," he told reporters.
The minister said the Sir John Monash Centre was on time and on budget.
"We are very much on target to make sure the centre opens on the 25th of April in 2018."
The centre is named after General Sir John Monash, who led the Australian Corps with outstanding success on the Western Front in 1918.
The 1000-square-metre centre will be adjacent to the Australian National Memorial, half sunken into the ground and with a turf roof.
The heart of the centre will be a 483-square-metre interpretive area designed to deliver a multimedia experience for visitors of all nationalities.
It will be the central point on the Australian Remembrance Trail along the Western Front linking sites of significance to Australia, including museums, battlefields, memorials and cemeteries.
