(AFP) Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad will skip the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (Chogm) in Australia next month, an official said today.

But the official told AFP he was not prepared to comment on why Mahathir would not attend.

A spokesman at the Australian High Commission here said they had been informed by the Malaysian foreign ministry that Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi would represent Malaysia.

Relations between Malaysia and Australia have often been prickly.

Mahathir has in the past attacked Australia as a regional "bully" and said Prime Minister John Howard was not welcome in Asia.

Highly publicised rows

Australia should behave like the small nation it was instead of trying to teach Asia how to go about its business, he said in a televison interview in May 2000.

During Mahathir's 20 years in office, he also had highly publicised rows with former Australian premiers Paul Keating and Bob Hawke.

Keating sparked a furore when he described Mahathir as a "recalcitrant" for not attending the 1993 Asia-Pacific summit in Seattle and Hawke upset him when he called the hanging of two Australian drug traffickers "barbaric".

Chogm was scheduled to be held in Brisbane last October but was postponed following the Sept 11 US terror attacks amid security concerns and the withdrawal of many Commonwealth leaders.

The biennial summit will now be held at a luxury resort at Coolum on Queensland's Sunshine Coast from Mar 2 to 5.