Don’t know if these details are elsewhere on the thread but here goes :
ICAO Annex 13 sets out a hierarchy for the State responsible for investigations
1. State of Occurrance (unknown in this case)
2. State of Registration - Malaysia.
There are others listed but in this case we need not go any further. Malaysia is therefor the responsible State, Australia’s role is therefor to provide assistance when requested, I can only assume that Australia led the search after a formal request.
ATSB is the investigation agency, AMSA Is the search and rescue agency. As far as I know ATSB would have had little search expertise (especially search management) when the search began.
Australia’s level of involvement is and has been I suspect a political decision.
Australia’s further involvement ? Political decision again ? What are ATSB’s priorities given their finite resources, their Act is specific (as is Annex 13), re improving aviation safety. Where are our $s best spent ?