![\"Penman](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/837aaf199bb7cb6917342d5d4d86f4a0.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nThe 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”.<\/p>\n
Jim Penman said the Albanese government had created a \u201crising tide of red tape\u201d which tied up ordinary Australians with huge costs and time consuming paperwork.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe trouble is our dear Prime Minister hasn’t got a clue. He’s never actually had a proper job,\u201d Mr Penman said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe’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.\u201d<\/p>\n
Over the weekend, the founder of the $1 billion franchise empire called on the Prime Minister to spend a day working as a franchisee.<\/p>\n
Mr Penman told News Corp he did not expect Mr Albanese to push a lawn mower for a day.<\/p>\n
He said understanding small business operations might stop the Prime Minister’s “many stupid decisions”.<\/p>\n
The founder of the iconic mowing brand said he had not heard back.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cI 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,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt just gets worse almost by the week.”<\/p>\n
Mr Penman said the costs were one thing while the time spent dealing with \u201cmore and more regulations\u201d was another.<\/p>\n
\u201cFranchising is a perfect example \u2026 you’ve got these thousands and thousands of dollars that you’ve got to spend preparing contracts with disclosure documents that nobody ever reads,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey’re full of legalistic jargon. Even lawyers can’t understand them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Penman said he had only known two franchisees who ever read Jim\u2019s Group\u2019s disclosure document.<\/p>\n
Jim\u2019s Group has more than 4,350 franchisees Australia-wide.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe’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,\u201d Mr Penman said.<\/p>\n
Mr Penman insisted that some regulations were good, such as ensuring franchisors treat their franchisees \u201cdecently\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis business with 7-Eleven where they take away their business after 10 years with no chance to sell \u2013 that is absolutely obscene,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow 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?<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’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.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Mr Penman said the government should take a leaf from Jim\u2019s Group\u2019s book where franchisees are surveyed anonymously each year with the results published online.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow why couldn’t the government do the same thing? Get an independent marketing agency to poll franchisees, every franchisee, once a year,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
“(It will be at the) franchisor\u2019s expense, (it will) cost the government nothing and post all the results on their website.<\/p>\n
\u201cThen 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Penman said house prices were being pushed up by the \u201chorror\u201d of zoning regulations which divided land into categories such as residential, commercial or industrial.<\/p>\n
![\"\u2018The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/24b1031c7e7574ca12d944f7fee9041a.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
\u201cMy big thing is zoning. Zoning is just a horror. We’ve got these zoning regulations which force up the price of housing,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHouses 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
On housing affordability, Mr Penman said if the government allowed proper subdivision of land so people could \u201cbuild what they want, where they want\u201d, rents and mortgage costs would fall.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt 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,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Mr Penman is running as a Libertarian candidate in the upcoming Victorian state election for the Labor stronghold of Northcote.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m pretty active,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think I\u2019ll win \u2026 I\u2019ll 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\u2019s got a few points.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe should listen to him.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The founder of Jim’s Mowing has said Anthony Albanese “hasn’t got a clue” about what small business owners…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":786104,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[8932,64,63,371151,371152,44,6895,47714],"class_list":["post-786103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-albanese","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-jim-penman","tag-jims-mowing","tag-news","tag-prime-minister","tag-sky-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/786103","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=786103"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/786103\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/786104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=786103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=786103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=786103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}