The founder of Jim’s Mowing has said Anthony Albanese “hasn’t got a clue” about what small business owners endure, inviting the Prime Minister to work a day in a “proper job”.
Jim Penman said the Albanese government had created a “rising tide of red tape” which tied up ordinary Australians with huge costs and time consuming paperwork.
“The trouble is our dear Prime Minister hasn’t got a clue. He’s never actually had a proper job,” Mr Penman said.
“He’s always been in and out of politics and he just doesn’t know when he makes these regulations and these rules and these principles what effect it has on us.”
Over the weekend, the founder of the $1 billion franchise empire called on the Prime Minister to spend a day working as a franchisee.
Mr Penman told News Corp he did not expect Mr Albanese to push a lawn mower for a day.
He said understanding small business operations might stop the Prime Minister’s “many stupid decisions”.
The founder of the iconic mowing brand said he had not heard back.
Speaking to Sky News, Mr Penman suggested Labor reduce the maze of red tape which stung entrepreneurs with thousands of dollars in up-front costs.
“I think one thing the government can and should do something about is the rising tide of red tape. It’s just gone beyond belief the kind of stuff that they’re throwing at us all the time,” he said.
“It just gets worse almost by the week.”
Mr Penman said the costs were one thing while the time spent dealing with “more and more regulations” was another.
“Franchising is a perfect example … you’ve got these thousands and thousands of dollars that you’ve got to spend preparing contracts with disclosure documents that nobody ever reads,” he said.
“They’re full of legalistic jargon. Even lawyers can’t understand them.”
Mr Penman said he had only known two franchisees who ever read Jim’s Group’s disclosure document.
Jim’s Group has more than 4,350 franchisees Australia-wide.
“We’re actually not so bad off because we sign 1,200 franchises a year, so we automate the whole process. But it costs a typical franchisee thousands of dollars just to get a contract and get it checked out because they’re so obscenely complicated,” Mr Penman said.
Mr Penman insisted that some regulations were good, such as ensuring franchisors treat their franchisees “decently”.
“This business with 7-Eleven where they take away their business after 10 years with no chance to sell – that is absolutely obscene,” he said.
“How on earth can any government with any ounce of conscience think that the benefits of these international, greedy, I don’t even have words to describe them, matter more than the welfare of ordinary Australians?
“It’s just terrible. Nobody should be able to do a thing like that. So there should be clear laws holding franchisors responsible for treating people decently.”
Mr Penman said the government should take a leaf from Jim’s Group’s book where franchisees are surveyed anonymously each year with the results published online.
“Now why couldn’t the government do the same thing? Get an independent marketing agency to poll franchisees, every franchisee, once a year,” he said.
“(It will be at the) franchisor’s expense, (it will) cost the government nothing and post all the results on their website.
“Then everybody who wants to buy a franchise can look at that website and then they can see all the garbage things that the poor franchisees have done. That would put so much pressure on them. Because if they treat people badly, they wouldn’t be able to get franchised.
“This legalistic stuff you’re doing will not work, will not protect anybody. You need to cast the light of people looking at what you’re doing and then you’ll get ethical franchising.”
Mr Penman said house prices were being pushed up by the “horror” of zoning regulations which divided land into categories such as residential, commercial or industrial.
“My big thing is zoning. Zoning is just a horror. We’ve got these zoning regulations which force up the price of housing,” he said.
“Houses should cost about half what they do in capital cities. And you can build houses much more cost effectively if you take away some of the stupid regulations.”
On housing affordability, Mr Penman said if the government allowed proper subdivision of land so people could “build what they want, where they want”, rents and mortgage costs would fall.
“At the moment, we’ve got a system where the government artificially restricts building, forces up the price of housing, which is great for the multimillionaires who have multiple properties, but it’s pretty bad for the poor sods who are trying to rent or who are trying to buy into the market,” he said.
Mr Penman is running as a Libertarian candidate in the upcoming Victorian state election for the Labor stronghold of Northcote.
Asked if people get a pleasant surprise while campaign door-knocking, Mr Penman laughed and said he mainly uses social media to get his message across.
“I’m pretty active,” he said.
“I don’t think I’ll win … I’ll do my best, but at least push the idea forward and maybe if they give me a few votes, people will look at it and say, well, this idiot, this Jim who goes for this radical change of zoning, he’s got a few points.
“We should listen to him.”