An Australian prisoner has lost his legal challenge against a state ban on Vegemite after arguing that being denied the yeast-based spread violated his human right to “enjoy his culture as an Australian.”
Andre McKechnie, 55, is serving a life sentence for murder. Last year, he brought his fight for the salty, sticky black-brown spread to the Supreme Court of Victoria.
McKechnie argued that refusing him Vegemite breached rights granted under the Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act, including the right to “enjoy his culture as an Australian in the community with other persons of Australian background,” according to court documents.
Justice Claire Harris agreed that prison authorities’ decision not to provide Vegemite had “limited” McKechnie’s cultural rights under the charter.
However, she ruled that the restriction was justified by the authorities’ efforts to prevent illicit drugs and alcohol from entering the prison system.
“The limitation on Mr. McKechnie’s ability to enjoy Vegemite in community with other persons of Australian background is primarily that he is a prisoner,” Harris wrote in her 47-page judgment.
Prison officials testify Vegemite could impair drug sniffer dogs and be used to make alcohol
Prison officials testified during a trial in July that Vegemite has been prohibited across Victoria’s 12 prisons for the past 20 years. They said the spread could potentially interfere with sniffer dogs’ ability to detect narcotics and could also be used to make alcohol because it contains yeast.
Representing himself by video link from the maximum-security Barwon Prison west of Melbourne, McKechnie argued that neighboring New South Wales does not prohibit Vegemite in its prisons. He said that showed “less restrictive means reasonably available” could achieve the same drug- and alcohol-prevention goals.
Most Australians regard Vegemite as an unfairly maligned culinary icon, and more than 80% of households are estimated to keep a jar in the pantry. For people who did not grow up eating it, however, the spread is often considered an acquired taste at best.
Barack Obama, the last US president to visit Australia, once summed up his view of the spread in two words: “It’s horrible.”
Prisoner argues Vegemite ban contributed to vitamin deficiency
McKechnie initially told the court that going without Vegemite had contributed to a thiamine deficiency.
He said Vegemite and pork were sources of thiamine, also known as vitamin B1. Because he is Jewish and observes kosher law, McKechnie said he could not eat pork and instead took daily vitamin supplements.
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Vegemite has long been promoted as a source of B vitamins, including thiamine (B1), riboflavin (B2), niacin (B3) and folate (B9). The nutrients have been marketed as healthy additions to children’s diets.
McKechnie later abandoned the thiamine argument as “not important” after lawyers representing prison authorities objected to his evidence.
Prisoner said Vegemite ban left him feeling ‘deprived, sad and disconnected’
He said being unable to eat Vegemite left him feeling “deprived of being able to practice my Australian culture, sad and disconnected from my family and community.”
The judge questioned that claim, writing that “it is difficult to accept that the inability to consume Vegemite, rather than the fact of his imprisonment, is a material cause of his sadness and disconnection from his family and community.”
McKechnie cited a 2003 article in the food studies journal “Gastronomica,” which stated that “Vegemite may be the best predictor of national identity of any food in the world.”
The article drew on 1995 research by Australia’s Queensland University, which found that a “taste for the spread strongly correlates with early exposure and to Australian birth and ancestry.”
He also pointed to the Australian Olympic Committee’s decision to overturn a Chinese import ban on Vegemite before the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.
McKechnie further cited the Australian band Men at Work’s international hit “Down Under,” released in the 1980s, which famously refers to a “Vegemite sandwich.”
On the effectiveness of smearing contraband with Vegemite, McKechnie cited a Melbourne newspaper article from 2017 that reported a man’s unsuccessful attempt to use the odor of the spread to conceal illicit drugs that he attempted to smuggle into a music festival in Victoria. The attempt was thwarted by police sniffer dogs.
Judge rejects evidence that Vegemite doesn’t interfere with drug sniffer dogs
The judge upheld prison authorities’ argument that McKechnie had failed to provide any proper foundations for his opinion that Vegemite does not interfere with drug sniffer dogs.
McKechnie also argued that Vegemite contained “no live yeast†and that any piece of fruit would be more useful in making alcohol than the spread.
A state prison department manager, Kevin White, cited publicly available research that said Vegemite helped home-brewed beer ferment more quickly.
Vegemite’s owner, Bega Group, did not respond to a request for comment on Monday.
