First Contact

In this final episode of First Contact season two, the group finds themselves at the West Kimberley Regional Prison to experience what life is like in an Aboriginal prison. As night falls, they have a decision to make. A cell is available. Who in the group will take up the offering of joining the 10,000 Indigenous people locked up every night in Australia? In the morning, the group heads due east to the tiny town of Coen in far north Queensland, one of four communities to be part of a radical welfare reform experiment. They experience a controversial teaching technique that aims to close the education gap and get Aboriginal kids reading, writing and ultimately into work to escape the cycle of welfare dependency, and debate and opinions are stirred up again.

For the first time after their immersive four-week journey in Aboriginal Australia, the participants of First Contact season two - singer-songwriter Natalie Imbruglia, ex-One Nation politician David Oldfield, TV personality Ian 'Dicko' Dickson, comedian Tom Ballard, former Miss Universe Australia Renae Ayris, and actress Nicki Wendt - reunite in a special forum hosted by Rhoda Roberts to discuss their experience and how it has impacted them.

Ray Martin takes a group of six well-known Australians with diverse, deeply entrenched preconceptions and opinions about our nation's Indigenous people on a journey into Aboriginal Australia when First Contact returns for a brand new season, over three big nights. In this episode, the group heads due south towards the tiny town of Elliott, half way between Darwin and Alice Springs, and a place that has been called the 'forgotten town'. They meet local 'SK' who currently lives in a four-bedroom house with anywhere up to 20 other people. Natalie and Nicki are both shocked by what they are seeing in their own country. Then the six separate as the women head to Cootamundra and the men to Kempsey to visit sites of the former girls' and boys' homes that the Stolen Generations were sent to.