What I've noticed for our boy is that he prefers to operate on his own timeline. He prefers people who observe his body language and respond accordingly. If you force him to step up when he's not in the mood or ready, he will first try to push your hand away gently. If that doesn't work, he grows resentful and starts to dislike your hands.
Another thing is he dislikes sudden movement hand movement around himself unless you are the person who trained him for such thing. I have worked on training him to be more malleable with me (I am his primary caregiver, so I need to be able to check his physiological health), so I can get away with more things around him. My partner has not had such training sessions, so our boy is a bit more flighty around his hands.
That leads me to question what sort of association does he have with your hands? Do your hands try to touch him when he doesn't want to be touched? Do your hands try to grab him when he doesn't want to be held? Do your hands force a step up when he's not interested? Do your hands not offer any treats, whether outside or inside training sessions?
Now, ekkies are not known to be touchy birds. Most don't like being touched at all. Some will tolerate it if you train them or if they see you as a sexual partner.
Don't expect to ever be able to touch your ekkie, apart from having him step up. If you get a step up, that's more than enough.
Our boy (2.5yo ekkie) sees any touch outside of training situations as sexual. I can't even touch his head without triggering regurgitation and humping. So you can imagine I can't even touch his body. Our only touch comes in the form of our training sessions. Which means the only person touching him is me, not even my partner.
Just be careful with your wife and daughters, depending on the subspecies mix. While there is little research done on Papua New Guinea and Indonesian ekkies, Australian ekkies are known to be poly - they have multiple mates, so he could be viewing your wife and daughters as potential mates. In which case, you must make sure he doesn't get frustrated; if he gets frustrated, he could lash out at not just you, the rival, but also at them for leading him on but not responding to his advances.