Australian man serving life sentence for murder sues over God-given right to eat Vegemite

"We're happy little Vegemites. As bright as bright can be. We all enjoy our Vegemite. For breakfast, lunch, and tea."

Now, I cannot think of one foodstuff more linked to a country than Vegemite is to Australia. The dark brown spread, made from brewers’ yeast, rotten vegetables and spices, was first dreamt up in Melbourne during the Great War as poor Australians, very far away, were deprived of Marmite, a dark brown spread also made from brewers’ yeast and stuff.

Well, the enterprising Australian chemist and food technologist Cyril Callister went to work, gathering waste from the fine Melbourne brewer Carlton (Carlton Draught the best beer in the Lucky Country), breaking it down, adding salt plus rotten vegetables et voila.

Vegemite.

The Unique Flavor of Vegemite

It is a required taste, for certain. I required mine back in 2009 when Craig Anderson told me not to thickly apply it to my toast but rather spread a thin layer of butter, first, and then a thin layer of Vegemite.

Delicious.

And so I can very much understand Andre McKechnie’s plight.

The Queensland man is serving a life sentence in Australia after stabbing a property manager to death in 1994.

The then 23-year-old Andre McKechnie fatally stabbed Otto Kuhne, a wealthy Gold Coast property developer, during a fight. McKechnie, who was visiting Queensland from Victoria, inflicted multiple stab wounds on the 52-year-old victim. Kuhne died several days later from his injuries. McKechnie was arrested immediately and held on remand for at Brisbane’s Boggo Road Gaol.

Two years later, the case went before the Queensland Supreme Court in 1996. Prosecutors argued the stabbing was deliberate and occurred during a fight, though no clear prior relationship or specific motive (such as robbery or drugs) was publicly established.

McKechnie claimed it was an ordinary brawl that went real bad. The jury rejected any defence of self-defence or lack of intent and convicted him of murder.He was sentenced to life imprisonment with a 15-year non-parole period under Queensland’s sentencing regime at the time, which was significantly harsher than Victoria’s equivalent laws.

McKechnie was paroled after serving the minimum 15 years, but his parole was revoked in 2014. He voluntarily returned to prison, citing the psychological burden of parole conditions, and has remained incarcerated since, later facing separate child-exploitation material charges in 2023.

Anyway, Vegemite became denied to him as authorities fear the ultra flavorful condiment can be used to hide drugs or turn back into toilet alcohol.

Thus, McKechnie is suing, declaring that he is being forbidden “the right to enjoy his culture as an Australian.”

Australian culture is not a vacuum; it’s a low-pressure zone. Where other nations have centuries of shared mythology, ritual and unbroken tradition, Australia’s European layer arrived only in 1788, deliberately severed from old hierarchies.

Indigenous cultures, rich and continuous for 65,000 years, were marginalised rather than absorbed into the mainstream identity. The result is a society that often feels like a blank canvas: ironic, self-deprecating, allergic to earnest grandeur and quick to borrow: American pop culture, British sarcasm, Asian food.

The case will go to trial next year, other Australian convicts but I think it’s a strong one as Vegemite has only been banned since 2006 meaning precedent is fairly weak.

If you were locked up for life, is there any food you would sue to enjoy?

I’d probably take the government to court to fight for my God-given American right to eat Panda Express orange chicken.

Yum.