A combination of labour costs, being the most isolated country on earth and a tiny local market. Malaysia's GDP per capita is <20% of Australias (49k vs 9k), and the population is 30% bigger (30mil vs 24mil), not to mention the surrounding local markets (Thailand at 68 mil, Vietnam at 92.7mil).

Enormous import tax rates!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysian_motor_vehicle_import...

Thailand taxes all imported cars at something like 120%. (So a 50K car becomes a 110K) to encourage the local industry.

If a particular indsutry lacks comparative advantage in some country (in this case Australia) it only stands to reason that others do have comparative advantage in it.

So you we can speculate why, in a complicated world, the (cars, Australia) paring works badly while the (education, Australia) and (cars, [South!] Korea) pairings work well and the (cars, Taiwan) paring is somewhere in between.

But an important answer behind all of these is: The market speaketh thus.

Good question. Maybe lower salaries for factory workers.