It is clearly important for people involved in businesses to try to understand what is about to happen as we leave the EU at Midnight on the 31st December 2020. Clearly there are some challenges. The news report shown here followed on from the phone conference Boris Johnson took with Michael Gove. Bizarrely the paper reported that it was a private call and yet certain newspapers were invited to participate or at least listen in. Then there is this page on the Government website which is entitled Time is running out for businesses to prepare and if it was accurate in its content, in a similar sense that if what Johnson and Gove said to the business groups and trade association was accurate, we might be clearer in terms of what we have to do. If that page on the Government website was realistic in its next statement

The government urges business leaders to step up preparations for Australia-style arrangements from 1 January and launches ‘time is running out’ campaign.

perhaps the Government should release funds for businesses to travel over to Australia. Not for a holiday or even to follow the history of the 162,000 people that between 1788 – 1868 the UK Government sent over to Australia in order to start new types of lives. Sadly the reality is that there is no Australian arrangement in the EU or perhaps more accurately, the agreement between Australia and the EU which takes place at a Governmental level is almost non existent and it provides the Australian businesses with very little provision. However the good news for Australian businesses that want to trade with nations that have a base 9,303 miles away from the centre of their nation is that they can ask their Government and they will get an accurate and reliable answer. In the case of our Companies the call for us to follow the same approach as the Australian businesses, even though we are only around 303 miles from Brussels in terms of from the centre of our nations, is that our Government does not have a clear idea of what sort of deal we have. The current indications in the news are that there may actually be a trade deal being established, so that makes the page on the website nonsense. However given that there are no indications of the trade deal, the information available to businesses is not relevant. Still Australia does have a nice weather period at the moment so perhaps we could ask the Government for a chance to visit, although sadly even if we wanted to visit Australia, they would not let us in because of the protection they are providing to their nation in the context of COVID-19.