“Our politicians have forgotten how to be leaders,” says Sydney Science Festival ambassador Corey Tutt, when we talk about the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report and how Australia isn’t doing enough to prevent devastating fallout from the escalating climate crisis. “There’s too much governing for short-term politics, and too much of an influence on politics from the business sector.”
If anyone knows about good leadership, it’s Kamilaroi man Tutt. Not only was he the 2020 NSW Young Australian of the Year, the Australian Human Rights Commission has also recognised him with their Human Rights Hero commendation, and the CSIRO named him an Indigenous STEM Champion. He founded Deadly Science, a STEM support network that ensures remote schools have science resources for First Nations kids that connect them to a proud history of thousands of years of innovation on this land.
He’ll deliver the keynote speech at this year’s Sydney Science Festival, hosted free and online by the Powerhouse Museum on Sunday, August 15, coinciding with National Science Week. “It’s a tremendous honour,” Tutt says. “It’s a lesson to all kids out there that, no matter where you come from or what background, this is so possible.”
You can’t be what you can't see.
As a young lad, Tutt’s family moved around a lot, and he also witnessed a tragic accident at school when he was eight years old, which meant he didn’t always find it easy to connect to new friends. Self-identifying as a “weird kid”, he would pick up snakes and blue-tongue lizards in the playground and would watch tapes of In the Wild presenter Harry Butler with his dad. “Pop never got the opportunity to read, but he gave me a book, because he knew that I had a passion for reptiles and animals, and he knew the importance of reading.”
At school, Tutt was told by a carer advisor that his ambition of becoming a zookeeper (or an ABC radio sports commentator) was doomed to fail. “He said, ‘kids like you don’t go to university and certainly don’t become zookeepers’," insisting Tutt stick to a trade or he’d end up in jail. But he never let it dim his ambition, travelling the country working in various gigs including at an animal sanctuary in WA and then as an alpaca handler. The very first of those funny, oft-spitting animals he met, named Pikachu, headbutted Tutt, fracturing his cheekbone. “It was kind of life’s way of saying, ‘wake up, because you’re just coasting along’.”
A stint working for the RSPCSA followed, then he picked up gigs as a lab technician, which led to the University of Sydney. “I wanted to give back to other Aboriginal kids, so I started talking to them about science stuff, about what I was doing as an animal technician, and about the stars and space stations. You name it, the kids just absolutely loved it."
Our people are the first scientists, you know, we’re the oldest living culture and the first people to look at the stars, that we know of.
The environmental emergency we find ourselves in, with so little leadership from the top, energises Tutt to continue spreading that knowledge. “We need to care for Country more than ever, because we’ve stuffed it,” he says. “So Deadly Science is forever morphing into something that I think Australians should be proud of. And it’s beyond just me now. We are not just packaging up resources, we're also translating stuff into language later in the year. We know that not every kid we work with is going to become a scientist, but I’m sure as hell gonna make sure they believe that they can be.”
The importance of spreading that message to the next generation of First Nations kids is what drives Tutt every day. “For me, awards are a responsibility,” he says. “They’re a responsibility to every kid that looks up to me. They’re a responsibility to keep going and to show them that no matter what road you take, it’s completely fine for you. No matter what trauma you have in your life, or where you come from, if you just have passion and purpose, anything is possible.”
