MISUSE OF PROCESS When government talks about civil society, it makes a great song and dance about due process. Any society that claims it follows the rule, of law relies on due process - a series of steps that ensures that everybody in that society is treated equally and fairly by that countries legal system. Misuse of due process is a crime that brings both government and the legal system into disrepute. The struggle over the destruction of the Goolengook State forest by the Victorian State government and the Department of Natural Resources and the Environment, is not only an environmental and economic disaster, it9s an attack on due process. The Victorian State government is cynically misusing due process to destroy some of the most magnificent old growth forests in this country. The State government and the Department are stopping people from entering the forest by claiming that a fifteen kilometer exclusion zone exists around the Goolengook forest. Exclusion zones on public land cannot be legally created unless a private lease exists on that land, no private leases exist in the Goolengook State forest and surrounding public land. This so called exclusion zone has been created to give officers of the Department of Natural Resources and the Environment, the authority to arrest "trespassers" in this zone. When those arrested are brought before the courts, they are normally given a bail condition that prevents them from returning to the exclusion zone. The current misuse of due process is a cynical attempt by both the State government and the Department to illegally stop protestors from saving this precious corner of Victoria. While their cases wait to go to courts, forestry contractors under the protection of the department, are destroying what9s left of the Goolengook State forests. This cynical and calculated misuse of due process, not only belittles the Brack's Labor government in the eye of the electorate, it also places the whole justice system in Victoria in disrepute.
