What a great subject.
For example, the African American culture has certain 'rules' about the 'n_gger' word. The American culture generally has certain 'taboos' about the 'c_nt' word. So it isn't particularly surprising that every other culture on earth has 'rules' or 'guidelines' about other equally logical/illogical things.
The problem is that if they aren't our culture then how do we know what things are respectful and which things aren't? Obviously this issue applies mainly if you WANT to be respectful .. but even if you don't want to be respectful then there are still other limitations .. like believability. For example, if you set your story in a typical office environment in the USA, and your story had a worker who regularly called his female boss a 'c_nt' to her face, then American readers would expect certain consequences to his actions. If you don't understand the culture, you just wouldn't make it believable ... or at the very least give a different image of this worker in the reader's mind than you intended.
In writing about Aboriginal characters, there are some curiosities in language. In my EXTREMELY limited experience, for example, calling someone a 'dog' is a HUGE insult, whereas certain American insults have no impact at all. But that might have been a curiosity of one tiny area.
One handy thing to remember is that the character in your book of ethnic group 'X' is simply one character's point of view - it is never a reflection of an entire culture's point-of-view. If you try and imply anything else then you WILL offend people, because you'll be telling them 'I'm not of your culture .. but this is your opinion on this subject'. For example, the person I've known best who was Aboriginal was a rabid Star Trek fan - his hobby at the time was translating Linux manuals into Klingon. I suspect that wasn't a typical Aboriginal past-time, but if I had him as a character and I tried to imply that his entire culture was like that, then I would be offending all the non-Trekkies out there. In fact, just by using the wrong word (Trekkies .v. Treckers) I'm probably labelling this entire post as being obviously written by an outsider with no knowledge of that culture at all!
Good luck,
Mac
(PS:
Then if your book gets published, your readers will learn through you, and you will have helped dispel ignorance about Aboriginal culture
If that is your intention, then you'd better make sure that really
are dispelling ignorance .. which means that your research needs to be good, and you need to avoid falling back on stereotypes ... either positive or negative. It is a LOT harder than it sounds - I suspect our brain naturally tries to classify things.)
(PPS: If you are applying for funding, there are other guidelines as well)