The 2014 report about Catherine Paino-Povey, Mark Povey and Commercial and Residential Cleaning Group began with allegations of a $13,605 underpayment. A later court outcome found that three workers had been underpaid $11,511 and imposed $510,840 in penalties in that proceeding. The allegations reported in 2014 and the court’s later findings are different figures and stages of the case.
What the 2014 report alleged
PerthNow reported on 12 October 2014 that court documents alleged Catherine Paino-Povey and Commercial and Residential Cleaning Group deliberately underpaid three employees a total of $13,605 for work between June 2012 and April 2013. Mark Povey was also named in the report. These were allegations at the time, not the later court’s final calculation of underpayments. PerthNow’s 2014 report described alleged unpaid work, below-minimum and overtime rates, unpaid travel time and leave entitlements, unpaid superannuation and notice, and a $400 deduction described as a car-damage insurance excess.
In response to the allegations, Mark Povey told PerthNow, “They’re flogging a dead horse,” and called the case “an abuse of their power.” Those remarks were his 2014 response to the allegations; they should not be read as a response to the court’s later findings.
What the court later found
In a 5 December 2017 account, the Fair Work Ombudsman (FWO) said the Federal Circuit Court found that three Taiwanese women on subclass 417 working holiday visas had been underpaid a total of $11,511. The regulator reported that one worker received 34 per cent of her entitlement for two months, another received no pay for three days, and a third received about half her entitlement over three months. The court ordered the workers to be back-paid in full. The $11,511 is the underpayment figure reported for the findings; it is not the same as the $13,605 alleged in the 2014 report. The FWO’s 2017 release summarizes the outcome.
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Penalties in the 2017 proceeding
The court imposed penalties totalling $510,840 in the later case. The FWO reported the allocations as follows:
| Respondent | Penalty |
|---|---|
| Commercial and Residential Cleaning Group | $361,200 |
| Catherine Paino-Povey | $77,400 |
| Mark Povey | $72,240 |
| Total | $510,840 |
The penalties are separate from the $11,511 in underpayments ordered back to workers. The FWO said Judge Antoni Lucev found the Poveys jointly responsible for managing the operations of both the company in the later case and the company penalised in 2013, and described the cases as having similar circumstances and a similar mode of operation. Judge Lucev’s remarks, as quoted by the regulator, included: “The Respondents have failed to show any form of contrition or intention to alter their behaviour which suggests a lack of responsibility for their actions, and that the likelihood of further contraventions is high.”
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How this case differs from the 2013 case
The 2017 proceeding was legally distinct from the earlier 2013 matter, which had its own penalties totalling $343,860, according to the FWO. The $510,840 total belongs to the later proceeding; adding the two totals would combine penalties from separate cases, not describe the outcome of this one.
At the time of its December 2017 release, the FWO described the later penalties as its highest in a legal action in Western Australia and its third-highest in a case nationally. Those rankings refer to the regulator’s assessment at that date, not necessarily to current records. FWO Natalie James said the outcome “sends a clear message to operators that there are serious consequences for exploiting vulnerable workers.” The regulator’s 2017–18 litigation index records the decision date as 22 November 2017.
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What is not established by the available reporting
The cited reporting establishes the court-ordered back-payment and penalties, but does not establish whether those amounts were ultimately paid or whether there were later developments after the 2017 outcome. It therefore does not support a claim that the amounts remain unpaid.
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