Refugee Advocacy Service of South Australia Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission in 2003. Refugee Advocacy Service of South Australia Refugee Advocacy Service of South Australia Inc. (RASSA) is a non-profit Community Legal Centre in South Australia. It was set up in 2002 to represent asylum-seekers in the Federal Court of Australia. From about 2007, it was de-funded and ceased to exist. It has, however, now began functioning again in order to assist asylum-seekers in the community in South Australia whose applications are still being processed. In April 2002, a group of lawyers from the Woomera Lawyers' Group set up and established the Refugee Advocacy
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