Woomera, South Australia Immigration Detention Centre, and the return of the site to the ADF, Woomera West was redesigned, altered, and re-established as a secure defence garrison support facility and renamed 'Camp Rapier'. It is now frequently used by the Australian Army and squadrons of the RAAF's Airfield Defence Guards as a base camp for specialized training and testing activities. It also has had a detachment of Australian Air Force Cadets from South Australia stay there. Post-2003, the village population stabilized at about 400, but has subsequently dropped to around 150-200. When the RAAF assumed operational command of Woomera in 1999, there was
Immigration detention in Australia upon release. Immigration Department figures in October 2009 showed no improvement in the speed of processing claims since the change of government. As a proportion of the immigration intake, Australia accepted fewer refugees in 2009 than it did at any time under the Howard government. In October 2009, the "MV Oceanic Viking" was involved in an emergency operation rescuing 78 Sri Lankan asylum seekers in international waters within the Indonesian sea rescue zone. Those rescued were due to be landed in Indonesia, for transfer to an Australia-funded immigration detention centre on the Indonesian island of Bintan. However, the asylum seekers