Rudd's wife sells her firm

Labor leader Kevin Rudd faces a new assault over workplace flexibility in the wake of revelations his wife's company employs all her 800 staff under individual contracts and profited from finding jobs for workers to be employed under AWAs.

After agreeing to sell the domestic arm of her multi-million-dollar business to avoid claims of conflict of interest, Therese Rein revealed yesterday that her company did not use awards to pay her staff, preferring the flexibility of common-law agreements.

Although Mr Rudd has stressed that his wife's company never employed staff under Australian Workplace Agreements, it was revealed yesterday that the company had matched vacancies with jobseekers who were in some cases offered jobs under AWAs, which the Opposition Leader would ban if he is elected prime minister.

Ms Rein confirmed an overseas arm of her company was seeking to recruit German engineers to fill vacant mining jobs in Australia using the controversial 457 visas that Labor has targeted as exploitative in some instances.