A couple of mates who invented a mobile laundry with an old van to help homeless people clean their clothes are the Young Australians of the Year for 2016.
Queensland's finalists Nic Marchesi and Lucas Patchett started Orange Sky Laundry in 2014 in the back of their van and have expanded the service to five areas around the country.
More than 270 volunteers operate the vans - which have two commercial washing machines and two dryers - and reach homeless Australians in 36 locations.
Collectively they wash more than 350 loads each week in Brisbane, Melbourne, South East Victoria, Sydney and the Gold Coast.
In 2015, the best mates also took their service to North Queensland to help cyclone-affected communities.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull revealed the pair as this year's Young Australians of the Year at a ceremony on the lawns of Canberra's Parliament House on Monday evening.
It's the first time an Australian of the Year award has been collected by two people.
Mr Patchett said hygiene of homeless Australians was constantly overlooked.
"The very first thing we all do in the morning is put a fresh set of clean clothes on and have a chat to someone," he told AAP at the ceremony.
"We thought everyone deserves that basic human right."
The pair want to expand their service Australia-wide in hopes of improving the lives of others.
"Unfortunately there are homeless people all around the world and we want to help every one of those people," Mr Marchesi told AAP.
"Our goal is to help every one of those 105,000 (homeless) Australians but also the Australian community."
Mr Marchesi and Mr Patchett take the title from last year's winner, deaf advocate Drisana Levitzke-Gray, who wants Australians to embrace her language of Auslan.
