A prisoner’s challenge to an Australian state’s ban on prisoners eating Vegemite failed after he argued in court on Monday that his refusal to use the yeast-based polarizing spread violated his human rights to “enjoy his culture as an Australian”.
Andre McKechnie, 55, is serving a life sentence for murder. Last year he launched a lawsuit in the Supreme Court of Victoria over the salty, sticky, dark-brown by-product of the beer brewing process.
Court documents show he argued that being refused Vegemite deprived him of his right under the Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act to “enjoy Australian culture in the community with other people of Australian background”.
Judge Clare Harris accepted the prison authorities’ decision to refuse to allow McKeeney Widgemet to “restrict his cultural rights” under the Charter.
But she found the ban was reasonable and met the authority’s aim of removing illegal drugs and alcohol from the prison system.
“Mr McKechnie’s ability to enjoy Vegemite with other people of Australian background was restricted primarily because he was a prisoner,” Harris wrote in the 47-page judgment.
Prison officials confirm Vegemite may harm drug-sniffing dogs and can be used to make alcohol
Vegemite has been banned from 12 prisons in the state over the past 20 years because it could impair the ability of sniffer dogs to detect drugs and could be used to brew alcohol because of its yeast content, prison officials testified at a July trial.
McKechnie, who represented himself in court via video link from maximum-security Barwen Prison west of Melbourne, argued that the fact that neighboring New South Wales did not ban Vegemite in prisons proved there were “less restrictive means reasonably available” to achieve such drug and alcohol results.
Most Australians regard Vegemite as an unfairly maligned culinary icon, with it estimated that more than 80 per cent of Australian households have a jar in their pantry. For those who didn’t grow up eating Vegemite, Vegemite is considered an acquired taste at best.
The last US president to visit Australia, Barack Obama, said: “It’s horrific.”
Prisoners argue Vegemite ban caused vitamin deficiency
McKechnie initially confirmed that a lack of Vegemite caused his thiamine deficiency.
He said Vegemite and pork are both sources of thiamine, also known as vitamin B1. As a kosher Jew, he told the court he also could not eat pork and took daily vitamins.
Vegemite has long been marketed as a source of the B-complex vitamins thiamine (B1), riboflavin (B2), niacin (B3) and folate (B9), which are promoted as healthy additions to the diet of growing children.
But McKeeney dismissed the thiamine issue as “unimportant” after the prison authority’s lawyers objected to his evidence.
Prisoner says Vegemite ban left him feeling ‘deprived, sad and isolated’
McKechnie said not eating Vegemite left him feeling “unable to practice my Australian culture, sad and disconnected from my family and community.”
The judge responded, “It is difficult to accept that the inability to consume Vegemite, rather than the fact that he was incarcerated, was the material cause of his grief and disconnection from his family and community.”
McKechnie cites a 2003 article published in the food research journal Gastronomica as saying, “Vegemite may be the best predictor of ethnic identity of any food in the world.”
The article is based on 1995 research from the University of Queensland in Australia, which found that “taste for communication is strongly associated with early exposure as well as Australian birth and ancestry.”
McKechnie also noted that the Australian Olympic Committee overturned China’s import ban on Vegemite before the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.
He cited the 1980s international hit “Down Under” by Australian band Men at Work, which included a reference to “Vegemite sandwiches”.
Regarding the effectiveness of smearing contraband with Vegemite, McKechnie cited a 2017 Melbourne newspaper article that reported on a man’s unsuccessful attempt to use the smell of the smear to conceal illegal drugs he was trying to smuggle into a Victoria music festival. The attempt was thwarted by police sniffer dogs.
Judge rejects evidence Vegemite won’t interfere with drug-sniffing dogs
The judge upheld the prison authority’s argument that McKechnie had failed to provide any proper basis for his view that Vegemite would not interfere with drug detection dogs.
McKechnie also believes that Vegemite contains no “live yeast” and that any piece of fruit would be better suited to brewing alcohol than jam.
State Prison Division Manager Kevin White said Vegemite helps homebrews ferment faster, citing public research.
Vegemite’s owner, Bega Group, did not respond to a request for comment on Monday.