Jeff & Luke

Jeff and Luke are a father/son team on the 1st season of The Amazing Race Australia.

Biography
They’ve endured a rocky relationship, so can father and son duo Jeff and Luke depend on each other now?

With four children and three grandchildren, 60-year-old Jeff is the oldest competitor on the race, but don’t expect him to be a pushover. “We’re quite physical,” he says. “Even though there’s a 28 year age difference I won’t be deferring everything physical to him.” Luke, 32, agreed to his dad’s suggestion to join the race because he saw it as a great opportunity to spend more time together. “My family are important to me but we aren’t as close as we used to be,” says Luke. Luke’s parents split up when he was 15 and father and son lost contact for many years afterwards. “The typical father-son relationship ended at that point. I was angry. He wasn’t there for me when I needed him,” says Luke. Jeff adds: ”There were certainly a lot of trust issues. We had a rocky few years in terms of relating, and not really relating at all. I made a lot of mistakes and I really want to make it up to him.” It’s only in recent years that Jeff and Luke have begun to repair their relationship. “Now we have a situation where you’ve got two people who’ve actively chosen to have a relationship,” says Luke. “But as for the level of trust required on this race – our relationship has never gone to that level before.” Luke is the middle of three kids for Jeff, who also has a 6-year-old stepson with partner Katherine. Luke himself is a dad to six-year-old Tyler - his proudest achievement. Jeff has lived and worked overseas in corporate consulting in Singapore, Greece, India and Thailand. Luke grew up in Melbourne and now runs his own landscaping business on the Gold Coast. Will problems arise with their very different approaches to the race? “I don’t just dive into things. I’m quite calculated and precise about how I do things,” says Luke. But Jeff admits his outlook is the opposite. “My style is probably a bit more excitable. I’m a doer so I’m learning while I’m doing,” he says.