The Truth About Cultural Safety: Why Good Intentions Aren’t Enough

For years, I’ve walked into organisations where the surface looks good. There’s a Reconciliation Action Plan on the wall. There are photos from NAIDOC Week events. There are words like “diversity” and “respect” printed in polished font.

But behind the posters, something deeper is often missing: Safety.

Not the legal kind. The cultural kind. The kind where Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander staff feel seen, heard, valued — and protected.

What I’ve learned over hundreds of hours in workplaces, yarning circles, truth-telling spaces, and executive rooms — is this: Workplaces aren’t culturally safe just because we want them to be. They’re safe because we design them that way with intention, accountability, and care.

The Gap Between Intent and Impact

I’ve seen the gap up close. Good people. Good policies. Good intentions. But First Peoples staff still feel silenced. Unsupported. Tokenised. Exhausted. What’s missing isn’t awareness. It’s alignment. Between what’s said and what’s done. Between inclusion statements and daily practice. Between performative action and meaningful change.

We Need a More Holistic Approach

You can’t fix a culturally unsafe workplace with a single workshop. You can’t transform systems by inviting mob in; but refusing to change the room they’re entering. What’s needed is a full-bodied shift. A systems-level redesign.

That’s why I created the SAFE Method, a framework born not from theory, but from lived experience. It’s not just for consultants or HR teams. It’s for leaders, boards, frontline staff, and most importantly, for the people who’ve been carrying the cultural load alone for far too long.

The SAFE Method: Five Domains of Cultural Safety

True transformation requires more than a checklist. It needs a whole-of-life approach one that honours identity, relationships, systems, and collective responsibility. That’s what the SAFE Method offers. Grounded in lived experience and First Peoples’ knowledge systems, the SAFE Method focuses on five interdependent domains:

1. Safe in Self

Cultural safety starts from within.
Do your Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander staff feel safe in their identity, voice, and truth?
Do they have space to lead, heal, and show up fully — without fear of retaliation or tokenism?

2. Safe in Community

Connection is protection.
Are your practices guided by community voice and cultural accountability?
Have you built relationships of trust with the people and places your work affects?

3. Safe in Organisation

Structures either harm or hold.
Are your systems, policies, leadership, HR, governance — intentionally designed to uphold cultural safety?
Or are they reproducing harm while appearing neutral?

4. Safe in Family

Workplaces often overlook the most important cultural system — family.
Are your policies flexible, inclusive, and aware of kinship responsibilities?
Do you honour the support networks that carry and care for First Peoples staff?

5. Safe in Agency

Mob deserve more than inclusion — they deserve power.
Do First Peoples have the agency to shape decisions, lead change, and determine their own future within your organisation

What Needs to Change Now

If we’re serious about reconciliation, retention, and responsibility, we need to stop relying on isolated efforts. We need to:

• Move from awareness to action — with measurable outcomes

• Shift from top-down policy to co-designed practice

• Embed cultural safety into the DNA of leadership, not just in training days

• Create feedback loops where mob are heard — and responded to

• Understand that cultural safety is a strategic imperative, not a “nice to have”

Where to From Here?

At this stage in my work, I’m no longer just asking people to listen. I’m helping them lead — from a place of truth.

If you want to change your workplace, it starts with courage. The courage to ask hard questions. The courage to listen — without defensiveness. The courage to build structures that hold space, not just intention.

I’ve seen what’s possible when organisations take this journey seriously. People heal. Teams grow. Trust returns. And workplaces become not just safe — but strong.

Let’s build that kind of future together.
📌 Learn more about the SAFE Method
📌 Work with me
📌 Email: info@buneen.au