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> Why was Mahathir so down on Australia?
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It would probably need a Malaysian to give you anything like a definitive answer to that question. There are a lot of niggles. Mahathir has been in politics a long, long time and I think a lot of it probably comes down to the complex and paradoxical historical interaction of Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore (in particular) over the last 40-50 years.
Australia is a convenient whipping boy for Malaysian & Indonesian nationalists & islamists (who tend to speak the same language, both literally and figuratively) for a number of reasons:
(e.g.)
1. Until the late 1960s Australia had an openly racist immigration policy.
2. Australia is unusual in that it has long had a fully-developed economy and (historically at least) had one of the world's highest standards of living, right next door to countries which were (historically at least) highly underdeveloped.
3. For neighbours, Australia and the ASEAN countries (Singapore excepted) have so little to do with each other that outsiders would probably be amazed, including very little trade. This is partly due to cultural difference, but also because of historically long standing protectionist policies among all parties concerned (although Australia went radically anti-protection in the 1980s).
4. Since the 1980s, the Australian media has tended to be critical of the standards of human rights and civil liberties in SE Asia generally.
5. Aussie politicians have also tended to promote themselves as the local agents of western civilisation (e.g. even Paul Keating, before he became PM, said that Asia was a place that one flew over on one's way to Europe) and US foreign policy (e.g. John Howard's infamous "deputy sheriff" speech from a few years ago).
6. Malaysia and Indonesia have had their differences, including a little-known war in 1963-66 (the so-called Confrontation/Konfrontasi, in which Australian and New Zealand troops also fought Indonesians), but these days their political elites tend to side with one another when it comes to disputes between either of them (or other islamic countries) and "western countries": e.g. about 12 years ago I happened to meet some Malaysians in London, and we were getting on famously until I brought up the subject of E.Timor's unwillingness to remain part of Indonesia.
(There are probably others, but the above is all I can think of the moment.)
Grant.