UPDATE: FOREIGN Minister Bob Carr has rejected criticism the government has done nothing to help Julian Assange fight his extradition from the UK to Sweden on sexual assault charges.

Assange lost his British Supreme Court extradition appeal yesterday, but lawyers for the WikiLeaks founder have indicated they'll seek to have the appeal reopened.

Assange's mother, Christine, has criticised the government for its lack of help, but Senator Carr says Assange has been receiving regular visits from Australian consular staff.

He's told Sky News Assange gets the same help as any other Australian caught up in the legal processes of another country, but Australia can't interfere with those processes.

Mr Carr's comments follow Assange's mother says the Australian Government has done nothing to help him fight his extradition from the UK to Sweden.

Assange lost his British Supreme Court extradition appeal overnight, but lawyers for the WikiLeaks founder have indicated they will seek to have the appeal reopened.

Queensland-born Assange, 40, has been fighting a Swedish Public Prosecutor request that he be extradited to Stockholm for questioning over allegations of sexual assault against two women in August 2010.

Lawyers for Assange argued that the prosecutor was not a judicial authority, the title necessary to order an extradition.

Assange's mother, Christine Assange, flew to London to be with her son for the judgment.

She criticised the Australian Government's lack of help.

"(They have been) absolutely useless, in fact contrary to help, they've done everything they can to smear Julian and hand him up to the US," she told ABC Radio in Melbourne.

Ms Assange said it was important the facts of the case were told.

"I've always believed - which is really what WikiLeaks is based on, getting information out to people - that people can have opinions, but unless the opinions are based on fact they're not really valid," she said.

WikiLeaks has long expressed concern that if Assange is sent to Sweden, Stockholm would quickly send him on to the US.

While Australia's extradition laws would also allow her son to be sent to the US, Ms Assange believed Julian would have greater legal protections if he was fighting the extradition from home.

Assange now has 14 days to apply to reopen the case, in a turn of evens described as "extraordinary'' by legal experts.

It is the first time in its history the Supreme Court has agreed to consider an emergency challenge to one of its rulings.

The President of the Supreme Court Lord Phillips told a packed courtroom that the scales tipped against Assange with a majority of five of the seven judges sitting on the case.

The lack of transparency makes the Assange case smell

Assange and his mother missed the handing down of the judgment after apparently becoming stuck in traffic, but his lawyer Dinah Rose QC immediately flagged her intention to challenge the judgment.

She argued that the case had been decided on a point of law in the Vienna Convention on the Interpretation of Treaties that was not raised by either the defense or the prosecution during the appeal hearing.

In assessing the merits of the case judges debated the French translation of the words judicial authority.

Outside court Assange's solicitor Gareth Peirce confirmed his legal team would make an application to reopen the case.

"The majority of judges decided that the custom and practice of the European community in effect trumped the law,'' she said.

"The minority of judges considered that the words judicial authority mean what they say, a court and the law, as we understand it in this country.''

British legal expert Joshua Rozenberg described the development as "extraordinatry''.

"It would be very embarrassing if the supreme court felt the need to reopen the case and it's extraordinary, isn't it, that they might have considered something which they gave the parties no opportunity to argue.''

Vaughn Smith said the legal marathon surrounding the judgment was significant in itself.

"This suggests pretty clearly that Julian has done the country some good,'' Mr Smith said.

"It was clearly an issue that needed to go to the Supreme Court.'

"I think it's quite amusing if you're an Englishman that it appears that parliament was confused on the basis of a misunderstanding of a French word. That seems strange.''

If Assange's application is rejected the only avenue left available to him will be a last-ditch appeal to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France.

A decision on whether the ECHR agree to hear the challenge would be made within a further 14 days, after which an injunction could be lodged to have the extradition process put on hold again.

Rallies supporting Assange are due to be held in most Australian capital cities today.

Originally published as We've helped Assange - Carr