How Much Malaysian Knowledge/Interest re Australia pre 19th century?

One of the most underrated migrations in human history was that of Malays who first island hopped to colonize virtually all possible habitable islands in the Indonesian and Phillipine archipelagos, then island hopped all over the South Pacific as far away as Hawaii and Easter Island as well as New Zealand and even Madagascar.

However; apart from brushing a bit the northernmost fringe islands off the Australian coast, there appears to have been little if any direct interaction with this huge continent directly to the south of the Malay Peninsula despite them venturing to arch over to eventually colonize New Zealand and Madagascar.

My query is that if a British trader happened to meet up a Malay trader in Singapore during the early 19th century, how much if any knowledge of Australia would a typical Malay have had re Australia (and would the British have had MORE knowledge of even the northern Australian coastline than would the Malays)? Could it have been that they were so put off by folks in New Guinea that they didn't dare attempt to see if there was anything to the south of them worth exploring?
 
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