You have to "love" the media when parliament is on Hols, it is a weekend, and in many cases they have no clue! The story gives the impression that Vegemite itself  is being turned into beer, it was even on BBC TV news !

The Vegemite as mentioned above  is just a source of  yeast.  Why not buy a small packet of baking yeast?,  or do as i did many years ago, tip the dregs of a few bottles of my favourite beer (contains yeast) into a container and add sugar and water. In fact after one "brew" you have a permanent supply of yeast from the resulting residue (sludge) and do not have to source any more.

The story behind Vodka is that potatoes are easy to grow in northern Europe  unlike  sugar beet and cane, So the starch in the potatoes is naturally converted into  a form of sugar which the hungry yeast  can munch, grow, and produce CO2 and alcohol.