Good intentions don’t equal inclusion
A caveat, to begin: in the context of everything happening in the world right now, writing a piece like this can feel small — almost insignificant.
But something said at an Ette Media event I attended earlier this year has stayed with me. When asked how, as journalists, they push through the heaviness of the news they responded:
“We can’t do everything. We also can’t do nothing. But we can do something.”
As the daughter of Lebanese migrants, this is one of mine.
Australia is one of the most linguistically and culturally diverse countries in the world. Hundreds of languages are spoken here, nearly half the population has a migrant background, and this continent is also home to the oldest continuing cultures on earth, with hundreds of First Nations languages of their own. Yet much of what gets communicated — by government and organisations alike — is still designed as though a single audience exists.
For communicators, this is the conversation we need to keep having.
Each year on 21 March, the United Nations International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination invites reflection on progress and persistent gaps. In Australia, this day is instead observed as Harmony Day — a day many organisations mark with morning teas, orange outfits and well-meaning messages.
But celebration and inclusion are not the same thing.
The same pattern shows up around National NAIDOC Week, and this year marks 50 years since the National NAIDOC Committee became entirely Indigenous-led — a milestone worth marking well, not just marking.
We talk about belonging. We design campaigns around inclusion. We publish messages that say everyone is welcome. But when people cannot access or understand information, exclusion is not abstract — it is real. And in many cases, it forms part of the same system that allows discrimination to persist.
Communication is never one-size-fits-all.
Too often, we see inclusive communication treated as a translation exercise — converting a factsheet into a handful of other languages, placing it on a website and considering the job done. The message may have been delivered. But has it been received, understood and acted upon by the people who need it most?
Good intentions do not guarantee good communication. The consequences of getting this wrong are real, and for many, difficult to fully comprehend.
NAATI’s We All Deserve to Be Understood campaign is a great example of the barriers many people face, particularly in high-stakes settings like healthcare. These are not minor inconveniences. They affect safety, dignity and access.
From intention to action
Inclusive communication is not a separate stream of work sitting alongside “real” communications. It is fundamental to doing communications well.
If you’re wondering where to start, or how to do this better, here are a few practical ways to embed inclusive communications into your work:
- Audit and prioritise: identify who your communications are reaching — and who they are not. Demographic context matters here. Knowing not just who your audience is, but their language background and community context, gives you a far clearer starting point. The Australian Bureau of Statistics can be a useful starting point.
- Engage with communities early and often: work with community members, peak bodies, advocacy groups, community-controlled organisations and recognised community leaders to help shape the work from the start, not just to review or validate decisions already made.
- Partner with trusted organisations: leverage existing relationships and networks that already have credibility with the communities you are trying to reach. It’s a hard pill to swallow, but trusted voices will carry more weight than yours.
- Co-design and test communications: develop communications with communities and test them across diverse cultural groups to ensure they are meeting a range of needs.
- Share, measure and adapt: share learnings, continuously test your approach, and measure success by who is genuinely reached — not by vanity metrics alone.
- Invest in capability: build it in as a core competency, not an optional extra. Attending events like the Ethnolink Summit is always a great place to start. No comms professional seeking development in inclusive communications should ever hear: “That’s not relevant to your role.”
Celebration has its place. But good intentions don’t equal inclusion. Doing something does.
Ask who your communication is really for. Ask who might be missing. And go from there.
Because we can’t do everything. But we also can’t do nothing.