In terms of all the lifestyle elements deemed to be important - climate, personal safety, opportunity, health and well-being, Australia ticks most of the boxes.

Add in acre after acre of wide-open space and a prosperous, bustling economy and you can see why Aussies see themselves as living in God's Own Country, a description favoured by all, even those whose notion of God is more likely to be an Australian Rules Footballer than any deity or Supreme Being.

Life in Australia, is perfect.

Well, nearly.

Scratch beneath the surface - you don't have to scratch too deeply - and you'll discover Australia's shame.

The naked, ugly fact that even today, in the year 2015, the indigenous population of Australia, the true original custodians - some would say owners - of the land, the people's who'd been living here for nigh on 70,000 years prior to colonisation (aka invasion) are significantly less wealthy and healthy, less prosperous and far more discriminated against than any other discernible immigrant grouping.

An exaggeration, you say?

No, I don't think so.

Persons who identify as being of indigenous origin represent a percentage of 3% in modern Australia. In everyday society, that is.

Indigenous Australians in jail?

Suddenly, that figure rises to 28%.

Quite a jump, you might say. Of course, it could be as a result of Aboriginal people committing far more crime, per head of population.

It isn't. The reality is that Australian Courts are much more likely to commit an Aboriginal offender to a custodial sentence than it would a peer from any other ethnic group.

It's shocking, disgraceful and, worst of all, absolutely true.

And most shocking of all, the present system, for all its clear and present faults, for all its blatant and prevalent prejudices, is actually a massive improvement.

Things, believe it or not, used to be appreciably worse.

February 2015 marks the 50th anniversary of the Australian Freedom Rides, a less well known civil rights struggle than the American original, in which a busload of young Aussie students travelled around the country highlighting pervasive instances of institutionalised, endemic racism.

The leader of the Freedom Rides was a man called Charlie Perkins.

Now, the chances are, you've never heard of him. Born in 1936 in what's now called Alice Springs, Charlie Perkins was of the Kalkadoon and Arrernte peoples. But, in terms of what he achieved, the sacrifices he made and his enduring legacy, Charlie is as significant a world figure in the continuing struggle for human rights as Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela.

Although he sadly died in 2000, I met Charlie Perkins and I'm here to tell you that he was, as we say in Scotland, a man and a half.

In addition to being one of a tiny handful of people from an indigenous background to attend University, Charlie was a time served fitter and turner, an artist and - I'm not making this up - a take-no-prisoners soccer player who, in addition to having trials with Manchester United and Everton - played professional football in Italy, Hungary and for the tough non-league outfit Bishop Auckland.

He never made it as a Socceroo though. Funny that.

Charlie, it has to be said, wasn't everybody's cup of tea.

Forthright, upfront and possessing a surfeit of what's called the non-sufferance of fools, Charlie could be verbally rash. Prior to the Sydney Olympics in 2000, he told an unsuspecting camera crew that he expected the streets to 'burn with Aboriginal outrage', a point of view that led to the authorities instigating a ban on any subsequent TV appearance.

Charlie didn't apologise. Apology wasn't his thing.

His thing was highlighting the outrageous aspects of racism and discrimination he'd suffered as an Aboriginal man in the ancestral land of his forebears. That, even in the 21st Century, continued to endure. That he'd experienced, all his life.

In one of his many battles, in 1965, in the town of Walgett, Central New South Wales, Charlie led a demonstration against the local Returned Serviceman's Club who - ludicrously, contemptibly - refused entrance to Aboriginals, even those who had nobly served their adopted, patently unworthy, country.

Charlie and his supporters were derided, abused and physically assaulted. However, they stood firm, their strength, courage and resilience, simply magnificent. It was a beginning, but not an ending.

Charlie died in 2000 and largely because of the negative publicity surrounding his 'burn' comments regarding the Olympics, the authorities and media allowed his memory to gently fade into insignificance.

A mistake then and a mistake now.

Charlie wasn't perfect, few people who truly make a difference are - but he was a man of extraordinary conviction, a veritable giant whose actions began the required and ongoing process of change in a country where radical change was - and continues to be - long overdue.

As such, Charlie fully deserves to be fully and gratefully acknowledged. The 50th anniversary of the Freedom Rides provides a mere start.

It's only my opinion but an even more suitable start might be Australians - and indeed everyone who recognises and appreciates the crucial import of human rights - remembering and duly celebrating his undoubted, bravura, but crucially, unfinished achievements.

Charlie was, as they say in Australia, a bloody legend.

RIP Charles Kumantjayi Perkins 1936-2000.