Channel Seven will broadcast a public apology and pay an undisclosed sum to 15 Aboriginal people from a remote community who sued the network after they were shown in blurred footage during a now infamous panel discussion on breakfast TV show Sunrise.



A settlement has been reached between the Australian commercial TV network and the group of nine adults and six children from Yirrkala in the Northern Territory, led by Yolngu woman Kathy Mununggurr, a Federal Court judge said on Thursday.



The Yolngu group were depicted in blurred overlay footage — originally filmed for a health promotion video — that played during a panel discussion about the adoption of Indigenous kids broadcast in March 2018.

During the panel, hosted by Samantha Armytage, commentator Prue MacSween said of the Stolen Generations that "we need to do it again, perhaps", and Ben Davis, a radio host at the time, said Aboriginal kids are getting "abused" and "damaged".



The comments made by the all-white panel sparked protests outside the Sunrise studio in Sydney's CBD and were found by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) to have breached broadcasting standards and provoked racial contempt.

The Yolngu group filed their lawsuit in February 2019, alleging they were identifiable in the blurred footage, and saying it defamed them by suggesting they lived in an abusive and dysfunctional community.