Does it seem that every time the world watches refugees flee violence and persecution while politicians claim their country can't possibly take in asylum seekers, we lamentingly claim that the world will never again turn its back on these people.

And yet the next time we seem people streaming out of a war zone with nothing but their families and the shirts on their back we forget the promise we made the last time this happened?

For a world that promised 'Never Again' after World War II, how much have we actually learned from the handling of refugee crises of the past? Are we making the same mistakes over and over again?

Do you see echoes of the treatment of Jews fleeing the Holocaust in government rhetoric about refugees from Syria and Iraq? And if so, what explains this short-sightedness?

Guests

Dai Le, Founder of DAWN (Diverse Australasian Women’s Network)

Professor Klaus Neumann, Historian at Swinburne University and author of Across the Seas: Australia's Response to Refugees: A History

Akram Azimi, Sociologist at the University of Western Australia and 2013 Young Australian of the Year