Vegemite – A Fundamental Pillar of Australian Culture

justice for all in an unassuming jar

This story is based on a true event. Andre McKechnie, 54 is serving a life sentence for a 1994 murder. He’s in Port Phillip Prison and has taken on an existential battle with the authorities.

Vegemite has been banned in Australian prisons since 2006 because it disturbs drug dogs and can be made into an alcohol that I can barely image the taste of.

 Anyway. he reckons his human rights to enjoy “his culture as an Aussie” are being assailed.

I may have exaggerated the story a little below, but you’ll get the idea.

 There are many ways for a government to trample human rights. You could crush union movements, surveil citizens, or quietly dismantle public services. Or, if you are truly committed to tyranny, you can take away a man’s Marmite.

 In a concrete box somewhere in Australia, one lone prisoner has drawn a line in the toast crumbs. Andre, 54, is not merely an inmate. He is, in his own estimation, a defender of civilisation as we know it. His cause is simple, pure and inexplicably sticky - the right to smear a thin, glistening layer of dark brown yeast extract across a slice of dry white bread and call it breakfast.

 The authorities claim this is about “security” and “operational safety.” They mutter something about Vegemite being used to confuse drug-sniffing dogs or, horror of horrors, being brewed into a prison vintage that tastes exactly like it sounds. These are, of course, distractions. In my view, what we are witnessing is nothing less than a direct assault on the fundamental spiritual architecture of Australian culture.

 To understand the gravity of this outrage, we must return to the beginning.

Legend says Vegemite began not in a factory but in a monastery kitchen, when a distracted novice spilled beer sludge onto some toast and, being a resourceful sort, ate it anyway. The heavens parted. Choirs sang. His fellow monks noted that while it tasted like a dare, it was oddly more-ish. Thus was born the Original Holy Smear.

 Centuries later, as ships arrived in the Antipodes, barrels of this tar-like substance were unloaded alongside convicts, sheep and wildly optimistic dreams of farming. The new arrivals discovered that the colonies were harsh and unforgiving. The sun burned, the snakes bit and the British insisted on wearing wool.

 Only one thing could sustain morale - a breakfast that tasted like licking a salty battery while being hugged by your nan.

 Over time, Vegemite (and its more aggressively Australian cousin, which we shall politely acknowledge without triggering brand lawyers) ceased to be a humble toast spread. It became a sacrament. Children learned the correct ratio of smear to bread the way others learned their times tables. Tradies would not start a day without the ritual of the Black Scrape on toast.

 Anzac soldiers carried it as comfort from home. Cricket teams blamed defeat not on batting collapses, but on hotel buffets that offered only jam.

 By the late twentieth century, anthropologists began to classify yeast spread as the unofficial eighth sacrament of Australian life, after beer and before apologising for absolutely nothing. It was no longer a condiment. It was identity. It was the flavour of “we’re in this together,” of “you right, mate?” and “we’ll be right” when evidently, objectively, nothing was right at all.

 Into this deep, sacred cultural terrain blunders the modern state, with its high-vis vests, clipboards and robust risk frameworks.

 Somewhere in a grey office, a committee sat down and decided that while incarceration naturally involves a loss of freedom, dignity and basic privacy, it must now also involve the forced renunciation of the Cult of the Toast. A memo was drafted - “Effective immediately, Marmite and related yeast-based spreads are prohibited.”

 There was probably a bullet-point about “smuggling risk” and a helpful diagram of a sandwich.

 What this committee did not understand is that they had crossed an invisible line. They had not merely removed a product from a canteen. They had stepped between an Australian and his right to look at a depressing breakfast tray and think, “Well, at least there’s that.”

 Andre, unlikely hero of the yeast resistance, has responded in the only way left in a civilised nation - he has turned to human rights law. In his filing, he argues that denying him access to Vegemite violates his right to enjoy his culture, his identity and his morning toast without bureaucratic interference.

 Somewhere, a legal clerk had to type the words “yeast extract” into a constitutional argument with a straight face.

 Picture the courtroom. On one side, the state, represented by Serious People with binders and risk assessments, solemnly explaining how a small brown jar represents a clear and present danger to order and discipline.

 On the other side, Andre, clutching a photocopy of a label listing ingredients that read like a chemical weapons treaty, insisting that this is not mere food but a “core component of my Australianness.”

 A jar of Vegemite sits between them, like Exhibit A in the Trial of the Century.

Expert witnesses are summoned. A cultural historian explains that for many Australians, the first test of character is whether you like the stuff. A sociologist presents graphs correlating Vegemite consumption with resilience, sarcasm and the ability to call someone “champ” without meaning it as a compliment.

 A theologian carefully outlines the parallels between holy communion and the morning toast ritual, noting that both involve a mysterious substance and at least one person pretending to enjoy the flavour.

 The state counters with the usual arguments. There are rules. There are risks. There must be order. Today it’s Vegemite, tomorrow it’s… well, more Vegemite. Who knows what could happen if we allow people tiny comforts that remind them they are still human? Next thing you know, they’ll be asking for proper healthcare and rehabilitation programmes.

 This is how overreach works, one jar at a time.

 The international community, naturally, has done nothing, because even the most dedicated human rights advocate struggles to put “spread injustice” into a funding proposal. But make no mistake - if there were any logic left in the world, the UN would be convening an emergency session to debate the Universal Declaration of Yeast-Based Rights.

 Article 1 - All humans are born free and equal in dignity and the right to complain that the smear is too thick.

 Article 2 - No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of their access to salty brown goo.

Instead, we are left with a single prisoner, in a single cell, insisting that human dignity sometimes looks like a slice of toast that tastes like concentrated nostalgia and regret.

 Will Andre win? Probably not. The machinery of the state is heavy, and its sense of humour is light. But his case does something important - it holds a funhouse mirror up to a system that talks about rehabilitation while removing the small, absurd rituals that make people feel minimally human.

 Because that’s the quiet joke underneath the slapstick. When a government is so busy being “tough” that it cannot tolerate a teaspoon of cultural comfort, it tells you something about where the real poverty lies. Not in the prison cells, but in the imagination of the people writing the rules.

 First they came for the Vegemite and who knows what they’ll come for next.

If this struck a chord, you will find more hard truths, sharp edges and the occasional laugh at www.regenerationhq.co.nz/satire. We can do better and we should expect better, starting today.