SYDNEY - Labor opposition foreign affairs spokesman Kevin Rudd told Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohammed today to take a "running jump" over his remark that Australia had to decide if it was Asian or not.

Mahathir told The Weekend Australian newspaper in an interview published on Saturday that Australia had gone too far in identifying with US aims and tactics in the war against terrorism.

"Australia has to decide whether it's an Asian country or a Western country," he said, adding that Australia would always be regarded as an outsider in its own region.

Rudd, a former diplomat renowned for his careful but occasionally colourful use of language, said the Mahathir was simply wrong and Australia would not "sit back and cop it sweet".

He said the climate of terrorism and the recent Bali bomb blasts had changed the way the government advised its citizens.

"I think frankly it's time the prime minister of Malaysia took a running jump," Rudd told commercial television here.