Awarded the Citizen of the Year award on Sunday night, he told those at the Australia Day citizenship ceremony the Mid-North Coast was one of the best places in Australia to live and he was lucky to have grown up in the area.

“The local community has been extremely good to me, I went to school in Wauchope and despite looking at moving to the city my family kept me here and I’m grateful they did,” he said.

“What makes our community special is that we are one community but we have many cultures.

“The biggest challenge facing young volunteers these days is how to build the bridge from the volunteers of today to the volunteers of tomorrow.

“Those who choose this community make it the place it is.”

Member for Port Macquarie Leslie Williams painted the picture of what it was like to be an Australian, while mayor Peter Besseling reflected the traditional Australian way of “having a go.”

Mayor Besseling paid tribute to local cyclist Jamie Vogele who recently rode up and down North Brother Mountain to raise funds for shade at the children’s playground over Livvi’s Place at Westport Park.

In total he went up and down the mountain 20 times, which worked out to be the equivalent of scaling Mount Everest.

“Jamie’s ride further emphasised the true Aussie way of just having a go,” Cr Besseling said.

Mrs Williams said there were many unique descriptions of being Australian, but it was the tragedy from Martin Place at the end of last year which explained it best.

“In times of tragedy Australians unite and come together as we saw after the Lindt Café siege in December,” she said.

“No matter what lies in front of us we confront the obstacles and we show this truly is the best country to live in.”

Australia Day ambassador Henri Szeps summed it up best when he said “no foreign army has ever trodden on our soil - we really are the lucky country.”