Abbott warns against ‘Vegemite watch’

But prime minister Tony Abbott has no plans to institute a nationwide ban on the dark brown spread or to create any sort of “Vegemite watch”, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported.

Mr Abbott said it came down to policies.

The debit card, called the Healthy Welfare Card, will allow all working-age people on unemployment benefits to gain access to 20 per cent of their payments.

Mr Abbott says it is important to ensure remote communities are being properly policed but insists his is a deregulatory government.

“People who are largely reliant on social security for their income will be spending the vast bulk of their income on things that are good for them and their families”.

Sales of the yeast-extracted Australian staple, Vegemite, is set to be restricted and monitored in certain remote Queensland communities where alcohol is restriced, Sky Newsreports.

The homemade alcohol problem is so bad that in some towns, children are showing up to school hungover.

Indigenous Affairs Minister Nigel Scullion described the yeast-based product as a “precursor to misery” and is urging some communities to limit the sale of the popular spread.

“While we cannot just go out and ban everything that could possibly be used to make illegal alcohol, at the same time common sense needs to take place and if people are purchasing large quantities of an item that could be used for brewing illegal alcohol, questions should always be asked”, the union’s president Ian Leavers said.

Brewer’s yeast is a key ingredient used in the production of beer and ale.