Your assumption is plainly mistaken here and ignores what’s happened for the last several years. The EU want Brits and other visitors from « safe origins » to be handled by automated machines - indeed they are desperate for it, that’s been adopted as a principle for several years and it’s merely the delivery that’s been delayed.

The issue, as discussed in many other threads on that is that the EU level is legitimate in making those decisions in principle but have no right/power to impose a choice of technology to member states as it’s their prerogative to pick those. The vast majority of Schengen countries - including those brits visit most - have long chosen equipment allowing this and it is in working order and has been for years. The problem is that a handful of member states haven’t or not at all ports of entry and that creates an issue because you can enter at any point and exit from any other and the place where you exit needs to know where (or rather when) you entered. So the issue stems essentially if you enter via an automated system with no stamp but exit through a place which relies on manual systems which can’t see when you entered Schengen without such a stamp. It’s not an issue of will, it’s an issue of poor and delayed implementation at great expense for eu taxpayers.

And there should be no place which handle an Aussie passport automatically but a uk one manually so I’m puzzled by that one. Really everywhere in Schengen where you can enter at a gate with an Australian passport you would be able to do the exact same with a Uk one as is the case at most airports I use which have a set of machines for eligible foreign passports (note that in Schengen separate machines are used for eu and eligible foreign passports). I’ll try to take a photo when I’m next going through one if I remember.