Australian judge rejects life-term prisoner's human rights challenge to Victoria's Vegemite ban
Photo: NPRA Victorian Supreme Court judge on Monday rejected a challenge by Andre McKechnie, a prisoner serving a life sentence for murder, to the state's ban on inmates eating Vegemite. McKechnie argued the ban, in place since 2006, breached Victoria's Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act and denied him the right to enjoy his culture as an Australian. The judge said his cultural rights are limited mainly because he has been sentenced to imprisonment. He also said McKechnie had not proven his claim that the ban breached the law requiring prisons to provide food that lets inmates maintain their health and well-being. Victorian authorities say inmates could use the strong-smelling yeast spread to disguise contraband or brew alcohol. Corrections Victoria told the court the smell can distract sniffer dogs searching for drugs. McKechnie was convicted of stabbing a property developer to death in Queensland in the 1990s. Vegemite is also banned in prisons in Queensland, South Australia and Tasmania.
Newsmax, on the right, reports the ruling under a headline matching NPR's and leads with the loss of the human rights challenge. Its excerpt calls Vegemite polarizing and is cut off before giving more detail. NPR, on the left, uses the same headline. It gives McKechnie's age as 55, notes the life sentence for murder, says he brought the case last year, and describes Vegemite as a brewing byproduct. Both centre on the rights argument and omit the state's justifications in the text provided. The alternative-leaning BBC differs by giving the state's reasons, the sniffer-dog evidence, the other states' bans, the judge's reasoning and the Queensland killing. It gives his age as 54.
How the sides differ Left and right sources report the ruling in near-identical terms, focusing on the rights claim; alternative sources add the state's contraband and sniffer-dog rationale and the inmate's background.
Headline, comparison and summary written by AI from the articles below. AI can make mistakes, so check the original articles before relying on a detail.
NPR leads with the judge rejecting the human rights challenge, giving McKechnie's age, life murder sentence and his argument under the Charter. It also describes what Vegemite is made from.
BBC leads with the murderer losing his bid. It features the judge's cultural-rights reasoning, Victorian authorities' contraband and alcohol concerns, Corrections Victoria's sniffer-dog evidence, and the bans in other states.
Newsmax uses a headline matching NPR's and opens with the prisoner losing on Monday. It calls Vegemite polarizing and frames the case as a claim of a human right to eat it.