Sandy, 41, shocked viewers and provoked a storm of comment on Twitter last night with her openly racist comments about indigenous Australians.

But in a twist (known to everyone with access to preview versions of the show but revealed ahead of time in News Ltd publications), Sandy walks out during tonight's episode of the show for "personal reasons", including her divorce.

"If you think that's racist, I don't f---ing care," she says on the first of the three-part show, which takes six "ordinary" Australians on a tour of Aboriginal Australia.

The Newcastle mother of five is uncompromising in her belief that Aboriginal people "burn down" houses they are given and are mostly alcoholics.

The Novocastrian told News Limited her departure was due to a number of things happening in the background.

“I had a lot of stuff going on at home as well, with a divorce, and my children back here in Newcastle,” she says. “I just figured I’d done a lot already in the time that I was there.”

Sandy, who said that she was ‘‘only really aware of the fact that people think it’s bad to call them Abos when I was going on this show,” said her time on the show had failed to alter her views.

“No matter what colour we are, or where we’re from, we all have opportunities to change our lives,” she said.“It doesn’t matter if you’re Aboriginal or come from overseas on a boat, everyone has opportunities here to live a different way.

“A lot of the Aboriginals choose to live (in poverty), I think it’s what they’re used to. Sometimes it’s hard to change."

In Wednesday night's episode Sandy catches a flight from Alice Springs to Sydney, where producer Rachel Perkins bails her up at Sydney Airport.

However, on camera at least, she won't reveal her reasons for leaving.

"She just got up and left," says Martin. "They had all been told they could leave as long as they told the producers. She just went."

Then Martin stepped in, thinking the show needed her.

"I talked her into staying because was really valuable," says the veteran reporter, who in recent years has discovered his own indigenous heritage.

"The producers, to their credit, all said it was going to look like a commercial reality program because she wouldn't commit to staying for the rest of the trip. If she goes and comes back and goes it would have looked like we were 'milking it' as a commercial [channel] would. They said they didn't want to play that commercial reality game.

"I said she should stay but they were right. It gave it that ABC/SBS cred."

After Sandy's shock decision, the remaining five participants began to come out of their shell.

"Other people had been quiet and listening to her but after she had gone they started opening up," says Martin.

Sandy will be reunited with the other five for the first time in a live studio discussion hosted by Stan Grant on Thursday night.

Sandy was the only one of the six participants who didn't openly agree they were ignorant about indigenous people. After hearing of the experience of her host, father and businessman Victor Morgan, having a father in the stolen generation, she changed her tune.

"Dad promised us that we'd never uh, we'd never experience those things as well, of being a taken child. And people just say 'get over it, get over it it's in the past'," Mr Morgan said, choked with tears.

Mr Morgan's revelation surprised Sandy, who said she thought the stolen generation children were only taken from "bad situations" to educate them.

"I got an understanding that families were torn apart and kids were taken away, and no government or person has the right to do that," Sandy said.

Sandy is just one of six participants who spent time in Sydney and then the remote community of Nyinyikay in the Northern Territory. Several of the other participants also declared Aboriginal people as layabouts and lazy, and said they needed to stop relying on hand-outs and work harder, sparking significant conversation online.

The second episode of First Contact airs on Wednesday night at 8.30pm on SBS and NITV.

The #firstcontactSBS hashtag also provided a platform for comments from indigenous leaders including Senator Nova Peris, activist Luke Pearson and rapper Briggs.