Murderer’s bid to eat Vegemite in Australian prison rejected by judge

Rick Rycroft/AP/File

A prisoner on Monday lost his challenge to an Australian state’s ban on inmates eating Vegemite after he argued in court that withholding the polarizing yeast-based spread breached his human right to “enjoy his culture as an Australian.”

Andre McKechnie, 55, who is serving a life sentence for murder, took his battle for the salty, sticky, black-brown byproduct of brewing beer to the Supreme Court of the state of Victoria last year.

He had argued being refused Vegemite denied him his 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 prison authorities’ refusal to allow McKechnie Vegemite “limited his cultural rights” under the charter.

Carola Frentzen/dpa/SIPA

Murderer sues for right to eat Vegemite in Australian prison

But she found the ban was justified in meeting authorities’ goals 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 throughout the state’s 12 prisons for the past 20 years because it could potentially impair sniffer dogs’ ability to detect narcotics and could be used to brew alcohol because of its yeast content.

McKechnie, who represented himself in court by video link from maximum security Barwon Prison west of Melbourne, argued that the fact that neighboring New South Wales state did not ban Vegemite from its prisons was evidence that there were “less restrictive means reasonably available” to achieve such drug and alcohol outcomes.

Most Australians revere Vegemite as an unfairly maligned culinary icon, and more than 80% of Australian households are estimated to have a jar in their pantries. Vegemite is typically considered an acquired taste at best by those who weren’t raised on it.

The last US president to visit Australia, Barack Obama, once said: “It’s horrible.”

McKechnie had initially testified that the lack of Vegemite had contributed to his thiamine deficiency.

He said both Vegemite and pork were sources of thiamine, also known as vitamin B1. As a Jew who observed kosher law, he told the court he couldn’t eat pork either and took daily doses of the vitamin.

A day trip from Melbourne leads straight to Australian gold. Not the precious metal, but the kind that comes in a jar.

The small town in Australia that’s spreading the story of Vegemite

Vegemite has long been marketed as a source of B vitamins thiamine (B1), riboflavin (B2), niacin (B3) and folate (B9) which are promoted as healthy additions to the diets of growing children.

But McKechnie dropped the thiamine issue as “not important,” after lawyers for the prison authorities objected to his evidence.

McKechnie said not eating Vegemite made him feel “deprived of being able to practice my Australian culture, sad and disconnected from my family and community.”

The judge responded that “it is 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 an article published in the food studies journal “Gastronomica” in 2003 that said, “Vegemite may be the best predictor of national identity of any food in the world.”

The article, based on research by Australia’s Queensland University in 1995, found that a “taste for the spread strongly correlates with early exposure and to Australian birth and ancestry.”

McKechnie also referred to the Australian Olympic Committee overturning an Chinese import ban on Vegemite ahead of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.

He cited Australian band Men at Work’s 1980s international hit “Down Under” that mentions a “Vegemite sandwich.”

On the effectiveness of smearing contraband with Vegemite, McKechnie cited a Melbourne newspaper article from 2017 that reported a man’s unsuccessful attempt to use the odor of the spread to conceal illicit drugs that he attempted to smuggle into a music festival in Victoria. The attempt was thwarted by police sniffer dogs.

The judge upheld prison authorities’ argument that McKechnie had failed to provide any proper foundations for his opinion that Vegemite does not interfere with drug sniffer dogs.

McKechnie also argued that Vegemite contained “no live yeast” and that any piece of fruit would be more useful in making alcohol than the spread.

A state prison department manager, Kevin White, cited publicly available research that said Vegemite helped home-brewed beer ferment more quickly.

Vegemite’s owner, Bega Group, did not respond to a request for comment on Monday.

Rick Rycroft/美联社/档案照片

周一，一名囚犯挑战澳大利亚某州禁止囚犯食用维吉麦酱的禁令，但最终败诉。他在法庭上辩称，禁止囚犯食用这种极具争议的酵母酱侵犯了他“作为澳大利亚人享受其文化”的人权。

现年 55 岁的安德烈·麦克基尼因谋杀罪被判终身监禁，去年他将自己争取啤酒酿造过程中产生的咸、粘、黑褐色副产品的斗争告到了维多利亚州最高法院。

法庭文件显示，他辩称，被拒绝提供维吉麦酱剥夺了他根据《人权和责任宪章法案》享有的“作为澳大利亚人，与其他澳大利亚背景的人一起在社区中享受其文化”的权利。

克莱尔·哈里斯法官接受了监狱当局拒绝允许麦克基尼食用维吉麦酱的决定，认为这“限制了他根据宪章享有的文化权利”。

卡罗拉·弗伦岑/德新社/SIPA

杀人犯起诉要求在澳大利亚监狱食用维吉麦酱的权利

但她认为，这项禁令是合理的，因为它实现了当局将非法毒品和酒精从监狱系统中清除的目标。

哈里斯在长达 47 页的判决书中写道：“麦克基尼先生无法与其他澳大利亚背景的人一起享用维吉麦酱，主要原因是他是一名囚犯。”

监狱官员在 7 月份的一次审判中作证说，过去 20 年来，该州 12 所监狱都禁止使用 Vegemite，因为它可能会削弱缉毒犬检测毒品的能力，而且由于其酵母含量，还可能被用来酿造酒精。

麦克基尼通过视频连线在法庭上为自己辩护，他当时身处墨尔本西部的最高安全级别监狱巴旺监狱。他辩称，邻近的新南威尔士州没有禁止监狱使用维吉麦酱，这证明存在“限制性较小的合理手段”来实现此类毒品和酒精问题。

大多数澳大利亚人视维吉麦酱为被低估的美食经典，据估计，超过80%的澳大利亚家庭的食品柜里都备有一罐。对于那些从小没吃过维吉麦酱的人来说，它的味道通常被认为需要慢慢适应。

最后一位访问澳大利亚的美国总统巴拉克·奥巴马曾说过：“太可怕了。”

麦克基尼最初作证说，缺乏维吉麦酱是导致他硫胺素缺乏的原因之一。

他说，维吉麦酱和猪肉都是硫胺素（也称维生素B1）的来源。作为一名遵守犹太教饮食律法的犹太人，他告诉法庭，他也不能吃猪肉，所以每天都服用维生素B1补充剂。

从墨尔本出发的一日游就能直达澳大利亚黄金。不是指贵金属，而是装在罐子里的那种黄金。

澳大利亚那个正在传播维吉麦故事的小镇

维吉麦酱长期以来一直被宣传为富含 B 族维生素，包括硫胺素（B1）、核黄素（B2）、烟酸（B3）和叶酸（B9）的来源，这些维生素被推广为对成长中的儿童饮食的健康补充。

但监狱当局的律师对他的证词提出异议后，麦克基尼放弃了硫胺素问题，认为这个问题“不重要”。

麦克基尼表示，不吃维吉麦酱让他感到“无法践行我的澳大利亚文化，感到悲伤，并与我的家人和社区脱节”。

法官回应说：“很难接受他无法食用维吉麦酱，而不是他被监禁的事实，才是导致他悲伤并与家人和社区疏离的实质性原因。”

麦克基尼引用了 2003 年发表在食品研究期刊《美食学》上的一篇文章，该文章称：“维吉麦酱可能是世界上任何食物最能预测民族认同感的指标。”

这篇文章基于澳大利亚昆士兰大学 1995 年的研究，发现“对这种涂抹酱的喜爱与早期接触、澳大利亚出生和血统密切相关”。

麦克基尼还提到，澳大利亚奥委会推翻了中国在 2008 年北京夏季奥运会前对维吉麦酱的进口禁令。

他引用了澳大利亚乐队 Men at Work 在 20 世纪 80 年代的国际热门歌曲“Down Under”，其中提到了“维吉麦酱三明治”。

关于用维吉麦酱涂抹违禁品的有效性，麦克基尼引用了2017年墨尔本一家报纸的报道，该报道讲述了一名男子试图利用这种酱料的气味掩盖他试图走私到维多利亚州一个音乐节上的非法毒品，但最终被警犬挫败。

法官支持监狱当局的论点，即麦克基尼未能为其“维吉麦酱不会干扰缉毒犬”的观点提供任何适当的依据。

麦克基尼还辩称，维吉麦酱“不含活性酵母”，而且任何水果都比这种涂抹酱更适合酿酒。

州监狱部门经理凯文·怀特引用公开研究称，维吉麦酱有助于自酿啤酒更快地发酵。

维吉麦酱的母公司贝加集团周一没有回应置评请求。