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 end of World War II almost 200,000 European refugees settled in Australia. Australia was reluctant to recognise a general "right of asylum" for refugees when the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was being drafted. The White Australia policy was responsible for the exclusion of Asians from migration to Australia until 1973. The first recorded instance of asylum seekers arriving in Australia via unauthorised boat occurred in April 1976. Fleeing South Vietnam after the Communist Party victory of 1974, an estimated 2,000 "Vietnamese boat people" followed from 1976–1982. The sporadic arrival of unauthorised boats was a cause of concern for the