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A prisoner serving a life sentence for murder has lost a legal challenge to Victoria’s ban on inmates eating “Vegemite”, after arguing that denying him the spread breached his right to enjoy his Australian culture. CNN World reported the ruling.
Andre McKechnie, 55, brought the case to the Supreme Court of Victoria last year. He said the ban denied him the right, under the Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act, to “enjoy his culture as an Australian in the community with other persons of Australian background”, court documents showed.
Justice Claire Harris accepted that authorities’ refusal to allow McKechnie to have “Vegemite” limited his cultural rights under the charter. But she ruled that the restriction was justified by the authorities’ aims of removing illicit drugs and alcohol from 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 testified at a trial in July that “Vegemite” had been banned in all 12 of Victoria’s prisons for 20 years. They said it could impair sniffer dogs’ ability to detect narcotics and could be used to brew alcohol because it contains yeast.
McKechnie represented himself by video link from maximum-security Barwon Prison, west of Melbourne. He argued that neighbouring New South Wales did not ban “Vegemite” in its prisons, showing that less restrictive measures were reasonably available to achieve the same drug and alcohol controls.
More than 80% of Australian households are estimated to keep a jar of “Vegemite” in their pantries. Many Australians regard it as a culinary icon, while people not raised eating it may find it an acquired taste. Barack Obama, the last US president to visit Australia, once said: “It’s horrible.”
McKechnie initially said that not having “Vegemite” had contributed to his thiamine deficiency. He told the court that both “Vegemite” and pork were sources of thiamine, or vitamin B1, and that, as a Jew who observed kosher law, he could not eat pork. He said he took daily vitamin doses.
“Vegemite” has long been marketed as a source of B vitamins, including thiamine (B1), riboflavin (B2), niacin (B3) and folate (B9), promoted as healthy additions to the diets of growing children. McKechnie dropped the thiamine issue as “not important” after prison authorities’ lawyers objected to his evidence.
He said that not eating “Vegemite” left him “deprived of being able to practice my Australian culture, sad and disconnected from my family and community.” Harris said it was “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 said “Vegemite may be the best predictor of national identity of any food in the world.” The article, based on research by Queensland University in 1995, found that a taste for the spread was strongly linked to early exposure, Australian birth and ancestry.
He also pointed to the Australian Olympic Committee overturning a Chinese import ban on “Vegemite” ahead of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, and cited Australian band “Men at Work”’s 1980s international hit “Down Under”, which mentions a “Vegemite sandwich”.
On whether the spread could conceal contraband, McKechnie cited a 2017 Melbourne newspaper report about a man who unsuccessfully tried to mask illicit drugs with its smell while smuggling them into a music festival in Victoria. Police sniffer dogs thwarted the attempt.
Harris upheld the prison authorities’ argument that McKechnie had not provided a proper basis for his view that “Vegemite” did not interfere with drug-detection dogs. He also argued that the spread contained “no live yeast” and that any piece of fruit would be more useful for making alcohol.
Kevin White, a manager at the state prison department, cited publicly available research saying “Vegemite” helped home-brewed beer ferment more quickly. “Bega Group”, which owns “Vegemite”, did not respond to a request for comment on Monday.
