People were incentivised to move to Canada and Australia with subsidised settling programs. The US was early enough in the colonial era that people moved there by choice mostly.

In order to facilitate that kind of colonialism, there were also deliberate and long term efforts made to genocide the native populations to make space for settlers. This was costly in resources and manpower. Settling Austrailia and the Americas was in part about claiming it as "virgin land" and in part about securing it from the influence of other competing European powers.

Malaysia and Singapore were not seen as "virgin land" in the same way. These were understood to be established places, they were not part of the "new world", so to speak, but rather an extension of the old world. It was costly enough simply to maintain trading posts and to secure the routes with the navy because of the pre-existing competition in the region, let alone investing in depopulating those places for settlement.

To the East India company, the valuable thing about Singapore and Malaysia were their goods, already farmed and produced by the native people. The land wasn't of any value.