The Special Air Services trooper was named Young Australian of the Year on Monday night, a year after winning the Victoria Cross, the armed forces' highest honour, for bravery shown on the battlefield in Afghanistan.

''I think we've lost sight of the good things in life,'' Trooper Donaldson told the Sydney Morning Herald as he stood on the front lawn of Parliament House.

''We've got it pretty good here, and we shouldn't forget that.''

Trooper Donaldson, formerly of Dorrigo, became the 96th Australian Victoria Cross winner after exposing himself to enemy fire to draw it away from trapped and wounded comrades.

On September 2, 2008, the 30-year-old was travelling in a combined Afghan, US and Australian convoy through Oruzgan province in Afghanistan when insurgents sprang an ambush, pinning the patrol down with machine-guns and rocket-propelled grenades.

Trooper Donaldson ran from one position of cover to another, engaging the attackers and, in the words of the citation, ''bought enough time for those wounded to be moved to relative safety''.

When the patrol was able to extract itself, the vehicles were so full of wounded troops that able-bodied soldiers, including Trooper Donaldson, were forced to run alongside them.

But Trooper Donaldson spotted a severely injured Afghan interpreter lying on the ground and ran 80 metres across exposed ground to rescue the man, then took him back to a vehicle and performed first aid on him, before re-entering the fight.

Trooper Donaldson said the year since he won the Victoria Cross had brought an increased workload, but that was something he welcomed.