Joint Defense Facility Nurrungar JDFN would have positively identified the attack realtime. The report found that ground operators at Nurrungar played a part in the tragedy, which the Air Force described as a "worst case combination of events"; these were in turn compounded by failures in the MIM-104 Patriot intercept system deployed near the Dhahran base itself. After September 1999 its operations were moved to the Joint Defense Facility Pine Gap, near Alice Springs, and ownership of the premises was transferred to the Woomera Test Range (headquartered in Adelaide). The ADF now uses the site occasionally for army test and evaluation work under the
Immigration detention in Australia were justified in the interests of protecting Australia's borders and ensuring that immigration law was enforced. A 2004 Liberal Party election policy document stated: For the final few years of the Howard Government, Indonesian boats carrying asylum seekers to Australia had virtually ceased and Australia's offshore detention centres were near empty. The newly elected Rudd Government, under Immigration Minister Chris Evans, announced a series of measures aimed at achieving what it described as a more "compassionate policy". The Pacific Solution had involved offshore processing, a system of "temporary protection visas" for unauthorised arrivals, and a policy of turning back boats