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
Preventive detention and released once this has proven effective. Australia laws authorize preventive detention in a variety of circumstances. For example, mandatory detention in Australia (a form of immigration detention) is applied to asylum seekers who arrive in Australian territorial waters or territory, until their status as an asylum seeker is established. In Australia's most populous State, New South Wales, preventive detention regimes have established powers to detain or to continuously monitor and limit particular activities of those who were once convicted of various serious sexual and violent offences. Recently, this has been extended, with the State government now able to control