Tango
"It did occur to me that while there are clear geographical and logistic reasons for Australia to take charge of the Southern search area, there is also the possibility that the US may be more willing to reveal any information they may have to the Australians than the Malaysians."
Pine Gap and other technology is jointly manned by BOTH Aus and the US and I doubt any hold ups would be occurring of relevant info between the US and Aus considering how close the two countries are, we share virtually everything else !