Ping - APAC Region

Slightly off-topic so apologies: Looking at hosting some servers in Hong Kong, to serve the APAC region. Our client is worried that this may slow things down in their Australia region, and are wondering whether hosting the servers in an Australian data-centre would be a better option. Does anyone have any statistics on this? Or ... does anyone know of a "ping" tool we can use, hosted in Australia? Any better ideas welcome. Thanks.