Our trade with Poland isn't at saturation point or anything close to it. Poland is still on the up as it recovers from the effects of communism and its trade benefits from being in the EU. In addition, as it has almost twice the population of Australia, it is fundamentally a bigger market than Australia is.

You are gambling our economy on the basis that "our trade with Austalia will grow substantially with a free trade deal" when there is no evidence for that and, even if it did, it is not going to substitute for the loss of trade that we face should with leave the EU and find ourself without a trade deal with the EU and EEA.

We've been trading with Oz since the day it was discovered. Why do you think there is more opportunity there?

Do you not believe free trade deals lead to increased trade?
Currently the UK faces barriers to trade with Australia, tariffs, quotas, regulations. etc.

Unless you are arguing that a trade deal with Australia is going to be of equal value to our current trade arrangements with the EU & EEA then it has to be acknowledged that even if itnmaterialises it clearly is never going to be as valuable to us.

And to protect ourselves most of those things will remain in any FTA.

Yes I'm aware of that as I am also aware that the EU as a whole would be silly to jeopardise their relationship with the UK; they need us as an export market. EU leaders are not known for being good players......until the crunch comes.

Where you have it wrong, completely wrong, is to take the view that by us opening up other markets, we will forego all trade with the EU....we won't.

See previous post where is said no-one is expecting one trade deal to replace anything we lose with the EU. And we are looking at 160 countries not just 27

Why are you so sure we will lose any trade with the EU if it is to their advantage?

Because since we joined the EU trade barriers have been put up. The EU has failed to agree any trade terms with Australia. Australia managed a trade deal with the US in 15 months. We should be able to do similar once we are free. That's where the opportunity comes from.

As I mentioned in the other thread, there was considerable opposition to that arrangement within Australia because it was seen to benefit primarily the U.S. Getting a free trade agreement is not difficult as long as one partner is desperate for a deal and is willing to make all sorts of concessions to the other partner.

Also, Australian exports are based primarily on agricultural goods and raw materials, making it a very different case than the UK. But even with that in mind:

"Estimates also suggest trade between Australia and the United States fell in association with the implementation of AUSFTA - also after controlling for country-specific factors.[20] Shiro Armstrong also concludes Australia and the United States reduced their trade with the rest of the world by US$53 billion and are worse off than they would have been without the agreement.[21]"

(Studies cited on Wikipedia)

15 months it took 16 years to get going.

But both Australia and the US are looking to start as soon as we exit. So your point is?