Woomera, South Australia and Woomera was chosen as a site for such a facility. The establishment of the Woomera Immigration Detention Centre in 1999, through the refurbishment of the original Woomera Village construction camp at 'Woomera West', eventually brought in new permanent staff (as the Nurrungar people were leaving) to settle and maintain the village population at around 1,200. The immigration detention centre, however, proved to be a highly controversial facility and it closed in early 2003 after only about 36 months of operation, at which point the land and buildings were handed back to the Defence Department. Following the closure of the
Asylum in Australia they were redirected to nearby island nations such as Papua New Guinea and Nauru. There, refugees had to undergo a lengthy asylum process before they could immigrate to Australia. At the time, the minority Labor Party opposed the policy. In 2003, Julia Gillard promised that Labor would end the Pacific Solution "because it is costly, unsustainable and wrong as a matter of principle". The Pacific Solution was intended to remove the incentive for refugees to come to Australia. While detained offshore, asylum-seekers under the Pacific Solution were denied access to Australian lawyers and to protection under Australian law. The policy