Australian Football League player Adam Goodes celebrated a goal in the Indiginous Round last week with a war cry dance that he learned from a U-16 AFL team called the Flying Boomerangs, which sparked a controversy that's gone all the way up to the New South Wales parliament. Eddie McGuire, a football club president and sports commentator for FOX's coverage of the match criticized the celebration, and in response to his criticism, parliament has officially denounced him as a "boofhead."Boofhead means idiot, basically.McGuire's initial reaction to the display was confusion and disgust. "We've never seen that [celebration] before and I don't think we ever want to see it again to be perfectly honest, regardless of what it is." As the story consumed the news cycle, he backtracked into a bigger problem, saying Goodes should have given people a heads up he was going to do the celebration, just like the government should have done with same sex marriage so people could be prepared. He also said it was "a made-up dance, this is not something that has been going on for years."At which point Jeremy Buckingham stepped in to bring a motion condemning McGuire that all sides supported. Buckingham acknowledged that officially condemning a man as a "boofhead" was funny, but he was also "deadly serious." Australia has had a terrible history in its treatment of Aboriginals and a lot of the uproar caused by the war cry and McGuire's take can be traced back to that. So it definitely is serious, and also hilarious to call a man a "boofhead."And while we're talking about a funny/deadly serious dichotomy, there was some concern about using the term "boofhead" in an official capacity, so they had to research the issue. In 2005. Because they've apparently done it before. From the president, on unparliamentary language:
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[reddit]"Having examined a precedent and considered the issue deeply, I find that the term 'boofhead' has been used in past debates in this chamber and, having regard to the rulings of previous presidents, I rule that the term 'boofhead' may be considered unparliamentary only if the member so addressed finds the term offensive," he told parliament.
"Accordingly, I rule that on this occasion the term 'boofhead' is not unparliamentary. However, I can warn members that I have discovered that the following terms are unparliamentary: scabs and rats, treacherous turncoat, thug boy, nong, and duplicitous Labor lap dog, which have been ruled out of order."