I agree that Australia could improve a lot but hotels will take a credit card scan at every country I've been to. In many other countries they also take your passport away and you wait a while to get it back.
> .. Australia could improve a lot but hotels will take a credit card scan
I've not had this done to me in Australia since late 90s early 00s. These days all it takes is a simple tap (or chip swipe) to put a temporary Hold[0] that's released on check-out (or next day).