“I classify myself as quite a conservationist, which might sound a bit odd, being a commercial fisherman, but what’s the point in me going out there  and just catching everything I can, and next year I’ve got nothing?”

“Coming back here, and doing the work I am doing, gives me an opportunity to unpack the place that I grew up in, in a way that I don’t think I would have the opportunity to do anywhere else. It’s not an opportunity you get often, to come back to the place that you grew up in and to see it in different ways.”

“I definitely feel a really strong connection to the land. I think since I’ve been living down this way, I’ve learned a lot more around traditional culture and have realised how much I didn’t really know about where I grew up.”

“My favourite story about this town is the story of Dog Rock, We had a discussion around whether it was appropriate for Dog Rock to have that collar, or should we put a proper collar in the Aboriginal colours around its neck?”

“I don’t know of another large place – not in the West, anyway – that has what Albany has. It has a cultural core, many cultural cores. It has landscape, it has spectacular coastline, it has constantly changing weather and every day is different.”

“It’s a bit frightening when the Patriots roll in to the RSL on their big bikes with their leathers on, and the ladies go ‘Oh, Geoff – what’s going on?’ And then they go and sit with these old ladies, and they’re no different.”

“My favourite story about town has to be the Lighthouse Keeper’s story; about Fay waving goodbye to the troops. She would’ve been the last person those thousands and thousands of soldiers sailing away saw; and many of them didn’t come home. I just love the idea of that girl, that young woman, out on Breaksea Island, waving to the troops as they left.”

“To me, it’s the scenic beauty of the town, the access to the water. You can do water sports and fishing. You can travel out a little bit and still find
beaches where you could be the only one on the whole beach.”

“I thought ‘if I’m going to live here for the rest of my life, I want to do something for the town. I want to help people, and the main thing in this job is listening to people,'”