Rudd's wife looks for foreign workers

Opposition leader Kevin Rudd's businesswoman wife Therese Rein's German company is seeking foreigners to take up temporary work visas though the ALP and the ACTU claim they exploit workers. The 457 visas have been attacked by Labor frontbencher Tony Burke who says they have been used by the Federal government to drive down local wages and conditions. Ms Rein's company Clements, a subsidiary of her multi-multi-million international organisation Ingeus Ltd, was yesterday advertising jobs for workers in the Queensland coal mining industry, principally mining engineers and geologists, and advising them that 457 visas were available. In an interview with The Gladstone Observer in April, Burke said Labor needed to make sure that jobs offered to foreigners seeking 457 visas had been advertised locally first. ``Secondly, we need to make sure visa holders are being paid the same market rate of pay as locals,'' he said. ACTU president Sharan Burrow, who has been reluctant to comment on Rein's Australian company's underpaying workers, said in March that 457 visas ``push down wages and conditions''. ``We're seeing more and more cases of exploitation,'' she told a Workplace Relations Conference. ``They are being seen in certain areas to take away jobs from locals. They're scams that you just wouldn't believe. People actually are now setting themselves up as shysters. ``It's not only about jobs from locals and pushing down wages and conditions, but it's actually about the exploitation, the twin issue of exploitation of the sons and daughters of neighbouring countries, which is pretty shameful when we have a proud history of migration.''