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
Asylum in Australia they were redirected to nearby island nations such as Papua New Guinea and Nauru. There, refugees had to undergo a lengthy asylum process before they could immigrate to Australia. At the time, the minority Labor Party opposed the policy. In 2003, Julia Gillard promised that Labor would end the Pacific Solution "because it is costly, unsustainable and wrong as a matter of principle". The Pacific Solution was intended to remove the incentive for refugees to come to Australia. While detained offshore, asylum-seekers under the Pacific Solution were denied access to Australian lawyers and to protection under Australian law. The policy