80% of Australians have this in their pantries, but one man is suing the government because he’s banned from having it

A man serving time in an Australian prison is taking the state of Victoria to court over Vegemite. Andre McKechnie, who is 54 years old, says he should be allowed to eat the popular spread. He believes the ban goes against his right to “enjoy his culture as an Australian.”

According to AP News, McKechnie is locked up at Port Phillip Prison where he is serving a life sentence for murder. He has filed papers with the Supreme Court of Victoria going after two government bodies. He wants the court to say that officials broke the law by keeping Vegemite away from him. The case will go to trial sometime next year.

The spread sits in the cupboards of more than 80% of homes across Australia. But prisoners in all 12 of Victoria’s jails have gone without it since 2006. McKechnie thinks this is wrong and wants the ban lifted.

Prison officials say the spread creates problems behind bars

Victoria’s prison system put the ban in place almost 20 years ago because of two big worries. The first problem is that Vegemite messes with the dogs that sniff out drugs. Prisoners figured out they could rub the strong-smelling paste on drug packages to throw off the dogs.

The other issue is that Vegemite has yeast in it. Yeast is off limits in prison because inmates might try to brew their own alcohol with it. This homemade booze is sometimes called prison hooch.

Different parts of Australia handle this differently. Queensland also keeps Vegemite out of its prisons. But New South Wales, which has more people than any other state, lets prisoners have it. Other areas have not said what they plan to do.

People who speak up for crime victims are not happy about this lawsuit. John Herron works as a lawyer helping victims and their families. His own daughter Courtney died after someone attacked her in a Melbourne park back in 2019. 

He thinks McKechnie’s case is silly and hurtful to families like his. Herron says victims get very little help while people who commit crimes get all the attention. “It’s not a case of Vegemite or Nutella or whatever it may be. It’s an extra perk that is rubbing our faces in the tragedy that we’ve suffered,” Herron explained.

McKechnie killed a rich property developer named Otto Kuhne back in 1994 when he was just 23. He stabbed Kuhne to death on the Gold Coast in Queensland. A court gave him life in prison and he later moved to Victoria’s prison system. 

He actually got out on parole and spent eight years as a free man. But he chose to go back to prison about ten years ago. He wrote that being on parole “had done more damage than good” to him.