VICTORIA COURT REJECTS PRISONER’S VEGEMITE APPEAL

A Supreme Court judge in Victoria rejected Andre McKechnie’s challenge on Monday to a ban on prisoners consuming Vegemite. McKechnie, who is serving a life sentence, argued that the ban denied him the right to “enjoy his culture as an Australian”. The judge said his “cultural rights are limited primarily by the fact he has been sentenced to a term of imprisonment”. McKechnie also argued that the restriction breached a legal requirement to provide prisoners with food that supports their health and wellbeing.

The judge found that McKechnie had not proved his claim about food provision. Victoria’s authorities say prisoners could use the strong-smelling spread to disguise contraband or brew alcohol. Corrections Victoria also told the court that Vegemite’s smell can distract sniffer dogs searching for drugs. McKechnie received his life sentence for stabbing a property developer to death in Queensland in the 1990s. He served part of that sentence in Queensland before his transfer to Victoria.

Victoria introduced its prison ban on Vegemite in 2006, and prisons in Queensland, South Australia and Tasmania also ban it. Makers first sold the spread in Australia in 1923 after developing it in Melbourne as an alternative to Marmite. The product prompted a dispute in Canada in 2025 when an Australian café owner was told to remove it from sale over local health regulations. Anthony Albanese, identified at the time as Australia’s prime minister, called Canada’s treatment of Vegemite “rather odd”; the café owner was later allowed to continue selling it.