Billy Craigie

{{Short description|Aboriginal Australian activist}}

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|image = Aboriginal men including Billy Craigie (left) and Gary Williams wearing Springbok jerseys, 1971 (cropped).jpg

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Billy Davo Craigie{{cite news |last1=Randall |first1=Michael |title=Melbourne United Indigenous young gun Will 'Davo' Hickey on his fight to get better on the court and stand up for his people off it |url=https://www.news.com.au/sport/basketball/melbourne-united-indigenous-young-gun-will-davo-hickey-on-his-fight-to-get-better-on-the-court-and-stand-up-for-his-people-off-it/news-story/9a997f7f0d81029a3f450283b423f739 |access-date=24 March 2025 |work=News.com.au |date=9 March 2022 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220309051239/https://www.news.com.au/sport/basketball/melbourne-united-indigenous-young-gun-will-davo-hickey-on-his-fight-to-get-better-on-the-court-and-stand-up-for-his-people-off-it/news-story/9a997f7f0d81029a3f450283b423f739 |archive-date=9 March 2022}} (born c. 1953 - August 1998){{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article101754917 |title=Aboriginal women record dissent |newspaper=The Canberra Times |volume=46 |issue=13,032 |location=Australian Capital Territory, Australia |date=31 January 1972 |accessdate=2 January 2025 |page=1 |via=National Library of Australia}}{{cite web|title=Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1998 Week 5 Hansard (26 August) Page 1319|website=hansard.act.gov.au|date=2012-04-14|url=http://www.hansard.act.gov.au/hansard/1998/week05/1319.htm|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150402122542/http://www.hansard.act.gov.au/hansard/1998/week05/1319.htm|archive-date=2015-04-02|url-status=dead|access-date=2025-01-02}} was an Aboriginal Australian activist. He was one of four co-founders of the Aboriginal Tent Embassy in 1972, the longest continuous protest for Indigenous land rights in the world.

Craigie grew up in Moree and was believed to be of the Kamilaroi people.{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article126960627 |title=New 'embassy' covers old ground |newspaper=The Canberra Times |volume=67 |issue=21,057 |location=Australian Capital Territory, Australia |date=7 December 1992 |accessdate=2 January 2025 |page=4 |via=National Library of Australia}}

Craigie, along with Bert Williams, Michael Anderson and Tony Coorey, sent up a Tent Embassy on the lawns of Parliament House in Canberra in response to the government's Australia Day statement on land rights.{{cite web | last=Hammond | first=Holly | title=The Aboriginal Tent Embassy | website=The Commons | date=2019-03-29 | url=https://commonslibrary.org/the-aboriginal-tent-embassy/ | access-date=2025-01-01}} The statement proposed general purpose leases and not land rights; it required people to intend and be able to make "economic use of the land," and excluded forestry and mining rights.{{cite web | title=The Aboriginal Tent Embassy | website=Insights Magazine | date=2024-12-23 | url=https://www.insights.uca.org.au/the-aboriginal-tent-embassy/ | access-date=2025-01-01}} This was unacceptable to the activists who wanted to be granted the rights to their ancestral lands. A documentary movie, Ningla A-Na, was filmed about the protest in 1972.{{cite web | title=Ningla A-Na (1972) ⭐ 7.4 | website=IMDb | date=2019-06-09 | url=https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1789857/ | access-date=2025-01-01}}

The activists held a press conference and Craigie said they would maintain the space "indefinitely until we can work out our own Aboriginal government and maybe fill up the rest of the building with elected members from our own, Indigenous, sovereign nation."{{cite journal | last1=Muldoon | first1=Paul | last2=Schaap | first2=Andrew | title=Aboriginal Sovereignty and the Politics of Reconciliation: The Constituent Power of the Aboriginal Embassy in Australia | journal=Environment and Planning D: Society and Space | volume=30 | issue=3 | date=2012 | issn=0263-7758 | doi=10.1068/d24310 | doi-access=free | pages=534–550 | bibcode=2012EnPlD..30..534M | hdl=10036/106913 | url=https://ore.exeter.ac.uk/repository/bitstream/10036/106913/1/MuldoonSchaap%20EPD.pdf | access-date=2025-01-01}} They along with a few others were arrested for trespassing but others came in to take their places. Craigie gave evidence at the trial stating that the land the government had claimed was sacred and that paintings and rock arrangements which would have indicated its status had been moved and disrupted when Canberra was settled.

In 1979, along with Cecil Patton, he stole the paintings of Aboriginal artist Yirawala from a commercial gallery which was run by a white man.{{cite web | title=Bell's Theorem (Reductio ad Infinitum): Contemporary Art—It's a White Thing! | website=e-flux | date=2014-11-24 | url=https://www.e-flux.com/journal/129/486788/bell-s-theorem-reductio-ad-infinitum-contemporary-art-it-s-a-white-thing/ | access-date=2025-01-01}} Their defense was that since they were Aboriginal, and the paintings were Aboriginal-community owned, they believed they could take them legally to protect them. The case went to trial and the two were found not guilty.{{cite web | last=Weisbrot | first=David | title=Weisbrot, David --- "Claim of Right Defence to Theft of Sacred Bark Paintings" [1981] AboriginalLawB 11; (1981) 1(1) Aboriginal Law Bulletin 8 | website=Australasian Legal Information Institute (AustLII) | url=https://www5.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/AboriginalLawB/1981/11.html | access-date=2025-01-01}} In 1980 he participated in a protest of the Brisbane Commonwealth Games.{{cite web|title=Aboriginal protests at the 1982 Games|website=National Film and Sound Archive of Australia|date=1982-09-30|url=https://www.nfsa.gov.au/collection/curated/asset/98350-aboriginal-protests-1982-games|access-date=2025-01-01}} In 1988 he protested the publication of John Molony's book The Penguin Bicentennial History of Australia by tossing a copy of the book into Sydney Harbour.{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article101971321 |title=Historian and Aborigines clash at bicentennial book launch |newspaper=The Canberra Times |volume=62 |issue=19,101 |location=Australian Capital Territory, Australia |date=22 January 1988 |accessdate=2 January 2025 |page=3 |via=National Library of Australia}}

Craigie's grandson, William Hickey, is a basketball player.