THE DAILY BS: HOW MUCH CAN YOU HANDLE?
SPARE ME THE BS (I’ve got things to do).
- Australian murderer Andre McKechnie, 55, challenged a 20-year prison ban on Vegemite, claiming it violated his human right to enjoy Australian culture.
- The inmate cited national identity, nutritional benefits and even the famous Men at Work song “Down Under” to defend the salty breakfast spread.
- Justice Claire Harris rejected his case, observing that his disconnection from Australian life might have more to do with being imprisoned than missing Vegemite.
LAY IT ON ME (I’ve got time).
Some prisoners fight for freedom. Others fight for better living conditions.
And then there’s Andre McKechnie, who went all the way to Australia’s Supreme Court over a jar of Vegemite.
Yes, Vegemite. That thick, dark, famously salty yeast spread Australians smear on toast and unsuspecting foreigners occasionally mistake for something edible by the spoonful.
McKechnie, 55, is serving a life sentence for murder at Barwon Prison in the Australian state of Victoria. He decided that the state’s longstanding prohibition on Vegemite wasn’t merely an inconvenience.
It was a human rights issue.
The convicted killer argued that refusing him the iconic spread violated his right to enjoy Australian culture under Victoria’s Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities.
He wasn’t kidding.
McKechnie told the court that Vegemite was deeply connected to his childhood, family and identity as an Australian.
Without it, he said, he felt “deprived of being able to practice my Australian culture, sad and disconnected from my family and community.”
That’s quite a burden to place on a breakfast condiment.
But McKechnie had done his homework.
Representing himself by video link from prison, he presented arguments about Australia’s national identity, the history of Vegemite and its role in the country’s cultural traditions.
He even cited the 1980s Men at Work hit “Down Under,” which famously references a Vegemite sandwich.
One can only imagine the courtroom atmosphere when a convicted murderer begins building his human rights case around an Australian pop song.
There was also an Olympic connection.
McKechnie pointed to Australia’s successful efforts to overturn Chinese import restrictions on Vegemite ahead of the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
If Vegemite was good enough to fight for on the international sporting stage, apparently it deserved a place in the prison cafeteria too.
Unfortunately for McKechnie, the judge wasn’t buying it.
Justice Claire Harris acknowledged that Vegemite is culturally significant to Australians and that the prison ban limited his ability to participate in that tradition.
But she found the restriction justified by legitimate prison security concerns.
And then came the observation that practically writes its own headline.
“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.
Ouch.
Apparently, a life sentence for murder creates certain obstacles to enjoying ordinary Australian social life.
The judge was equally skeptical of McKechnie’s claim that the ban made him feel disconnected from his family and community.
She questioned whether the absence of Vegemite, rather than incarceration itself, was responsible for those feelings.
And there was another little complication: Prison officials weren’t banning the spread simply because they disliked its taste.
Victoria’s corrections department testified that Vegemite had been prohibited in the state’s prisons for approximately 20 years because of security concerns.
Officials argued that its powerful odor could potentially interfere with drug-sniffing dogs, while its yeast-related properties could help prisoners speed up the fermentation of homemade alcohol.
In other words, the authorities were concerned inmates might turn breakfast into a brewery.
McKechnie disputed both claims.
He argued that Vegemite contains no live yeast and questioned whether it would actually interfere with trained detection dogs.
He also pointed out that inmates in neighboring New South Wales could obtain Vegemite, suggesting Victoria’s blanket prohibition was unnecessarily restrictive.
But Justice Harris concluded that he hadn’t supplied sufficient evidence to undermine the authorities’ security arguments.
McKechnie initially raised a nutritional argument as well, claiming that being deprived of Vegemite contributed to a vitamin B1 deficiency.
He later dropped that argument after prison lawyers objected to the evidence.
The court also noted that the prison provides him with kosher meals and other foods appropriate to his dietary requirements.
For the record, Australia’s affection for Vegemite is very real. The spread has been a national fixture for more than a century, and more than 80 percent of Australian households are estimated to keep a jar in the pantry.
It also has some very prominent foreign detractors.
Former President Barack Obama once delivered his own culinary verdict on the Australian staple: “It’s horrible.”
McKechnie would presumably disagree.
But following Monday’s ruling, Victoria’s prison-wide Vegemite ban remains intact.
So the convicted murderer will have to continue serving his life sentence without one of Australia’s most beloved breakfast traditions.
His freedom remains restricted, his cultural argument has been rejected, and his toast will remain tragically un-Vegemited.
Somewhere in Australia, a perfectly innocent jar of Vegemite has become the centerpiece of a 47-page judicial decision.
DBS WIRE SOURCES (I’ve got all day).
- The Hill / Associated Press — Australian judge rejects prisoner’s human rights challenge to Vegemite ban
- ABC Australia — Prisoner fails in court bid to overturn ban on Vegemite in Victorian prisons
- Associated Press — Australian prisoner loses Vegemite human rights case
- The Guardian — No human right to Vegemite, court tells Australian prisoner
