The London-based s are well reputed as the international award for factual video, audio and interactive productions. The AIB confers annual awards to honour the best entries from around the world, and this was the 13th year that these influential awards were announced.
In a huge honour for SBS Punjabi's Manpreet K Singh and Shamsher Kainth, their investigation into imported foods and illegal opiates was chosen as a finalist in the 'Investigative' category in the Audio section. Among the other four finalists, three were from BBC, and one from Radio Mitre SA.
The AIBs were conferred on 1 November 2017 and the final award in the Investigative category in the Audio secion was won by BBC World Service for their production "Stealing Innocence in Malawi".
The finalists included an entry from SBS Punjabi in the Investigative category Source: AIB
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Manpreet Kaur Singh
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Shamsher Kainth
More about SBS Punjabi's investigation that was chosen as a finalist at AIBs 2017:
Since made-in-India Maggi noodles were freely available in Australia even after a massive product recall in India, and after scores of SBS listeners sent images of putrid foods bought from local grocery stores, we launched an investigation into imported foods available in Australia, to answer two basic questions:
1. Are imported foods safe to consume?
2. Do they comply with Australian standards?
We researched USFDA website to find 3,000 Indian food products were banned from entering United States over a 15-month period, and realised that many items rejected for being “filthy, decomposed and unfit” were available in Australia. Going undercover to record on film, we visited several Melbourne supermarkets – apart from dubious foods, we easily bought banned substances opium-laced tablets, chewing tobacco and betel nut.
We were further startled by Department of Agriculture and Water Resources’s policy that only 5 percent of imported packaged foods had a chance of being tested before hitting Australian supermarket shelves.
Thereafter we commissioned independent laboratory testing of selected items. Not only did many of the imported consumables fail Australian standards, but we also found that many foods, including baby cereals, children’s drinks,
supplements used by pregnant women, and staple foods like rice and wheat, contained levels of lead, arsenic, chromium and more, deemed worrisome by Australian food experts. Every product tested, contained traces of insecticides, pesticides and fungicides, and a clarified butter showed traces of DDT, which was banned in Australia decades ago.
More alarmingly, we also found that each Kamini tablets, sold as a health supplement, could contain upto 20mg of opium – enough to give someone a hit! Several people recounted how Kamini addiction has ruined their (or their friends’) lives.
During the 10-month long investigation food importers, grocery-store-owners, consumers, state and federal
authorities including Australian Border Force, Victoria Police, AFP, DAWR, Department of Health and Human Services
(DHHS), FSANZ, as well as whistle-blowers, SBS listeners food experts and toxicologists were contacted. Responses
were sought from Nestle, Heinz, Verka, and MDH, since their products were in question.
After SBS Radio, Television and Online’s broadcast of this investigation, it was reported widely across Australia and overseas. It triggered an internal investigation by DAWR, which issued warnings to various Councils, and banned import of a brand of non-compliant rice. A wholesale-importer faced legal action for mislabelling, and Senator Nick Xenophon has raised this issue twice in federal parliament, calling for better regulatory frameworks for imports.
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