Communicating and engaging with Indigenous Australians in ethical and culturally respectful ways is critical for designers to make sure they are acting responsibly and lawfully. Respectful engagement with Indigenous Australians is about rejecting colonialist ideals and promoting reconciliation, self-determination and collaboration. As designers, having diversity when researching and developing ideas gives a competitive advantage and gives a better end product because you have a deeper pool of knowledge and experience to draw from. This is especially important when dealing with Indigenous Australian designs as they have different concepts and understandings of designs and intellectual property.
In a traditional western sense, intellectual property is about the individual, whereas from an indigenous perspective, it is less clear cut and designs may fall under the realm of cultural intellectual property. This makes it even more important to engage with Indigenous Australians when using their designs as to not misconstrue any meanings, as well as to allow proper attribution and remuneration.