Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(Aus. pidgin) a general excl. of approval, pleasure.

1847		Moreton Bay Courier (Brisbane, Qld.) 15 May 3/1: When they were asked how they liked Sydney they replied it was ‘budgere place, plenty meal, plenty flour, plenty tobacco, plenty every thing’.
1863		Clarence & Richmond Examiner (Grafton, NSW) 13 Jan. 15/6: Note by Sambo [...] Plenty gins sit down alonger river. Budgery black gin!
1880		‘Erro’ Squattermania 60: Boodgery feller, you Jack, give it poor black feller nobbler.
1880		Bulletin (Sydney) 6 Nov. 4/3: I want-a-budgery day’s shooting. Come on, old man.
1887		Bulletin (Sydney) 5 Nov. 9/2: The niggers gazed upon him approvingly, giving occasional short grunts, and when, after about half an hour of this killing work, the orator stopped, pale and exhausted, King William Buninyong [...] said delightedly, ‘Good pfeller! Good you! Budgery corroberee! Good! Good!’.
1890		H. Nisbet ‘Bail Up!’ 29: Baàl budgery, white fellow; baàl nangry here.
1895		Queenslander (Brisbane) 7 Sept. 443/4: In your issue of 10th August last is a paragraph about the death of John Lewis and that his alias was ‘Happy Jack’. It was ‘Budgeree‘ or ‘Budgeree Jack’.
1909		Queenslander (Brisbane) 16 Jan. 5/1: ‘Budgeree Ballads’ is a collection of contributions to the ‘Australian’ [...] and other newspapers.
1926		Sun. Times (Perth, WA) 28 Nov. 5/6: ‘Budgeree Bill,’ an Australian story for little Australians.