Australia in the Eurovision Song Contest 2019

On 14 October 2018, SBS announced that for the first time, they would hold a national final to select the Australian entry for the Eurovision Song Contest 2019 in Tel Aviv, Israel. The Eurovision – Australia Decides national final took place at the Gold Coast Convention and Exhibition Centre on 8 and 9 February 2019, with a jury preview show, matinee preview show and live TV final, hosted by Myf Warhurst and Joel Creasey. The winner was determined via the combination of a public televote (50%) and the votes of a professional jury panel (50%).[1]

On 14 October 2018, SBS announced an open submission for interested songwriters to submit their songs. The submission period lasted until 4 November 2018.[2] Over seven hundred entries were submitted to SBS before the deadline expired.[3] SBS announced the first set of participants for the national final on 2 December 2018 [4] the second set on 18 December[5] and the third and final set on 18 January 2019.[6]

The Jury voted based on the performance of each act from a special preview show, which occurred the night prior to the main broadcast. The five jurors voted by ranking each act in the style of the Final Eurovision Competition - with 12 points being given to the juror’s favourite act, 10 points to the second favourite, 8 to the third favourite and so on to the least favourite receiving 1 point. This resulted in 58 points being allocated by each juror and 290 being allocated by the jury as a whole.[7] The jury consisted of:

• Christer Björkman – producer of Sweden’s Melodifestivalen and of various Eurovision Song Contests
• Fifa Riccobono – former CEO of Albert Music (an Australian music publishing and production company)
• Milly Petriella – Artist Service director of APRA (music rights organisation)
• Josh Martin – Commissioning Editor, Entertainment at SBS
• Paul Clarke – Head of the Australian Eurovision Delegation

For the televote, Australia's total votes cast by the Australia public was divided by 290 to determine the number of votes that would equal 1 point. The vote total of each act was divided by this value to determine and be rounded up to the nearest whole number to determine the points received by each act. This rounding could result in slightly more than 290 points being awarded by the public.[7]

In the event that there is a tie in point totals, the tie will break in favour of the act with the higher number of votes from Australia’s vote. In the unlikely event the vote number from Australia’s Vote be identical, the Jury’s vote is used as the further tie-breaker.[8]

Kate Miller-Heidke made several appearances across Europe & Australia to specifically promote "Zero Gravity" as the Australian Eurovision entry. On 6 April, she performed during the Eurovision in Concert event at the AFAS Live venue in Amsterdam, hosted by Cornald Maas and Marlayne, to over 4500 spectators.[9] Miller-Heidke also gave several promotional interviews to Australian media outlets prior to the competition.

Australia performed twelfth in the first semi-final, following the entry from Georgia and preceding the entry from Iceland. At the end of the show, they were announced as one of the ten countries to qualify for the grand final, keeping their perfect qualification record intact. After the show, Kate appeared at a press conference with the other nine finalists to draw which half of the final she would participate in. Australia was drawn to compete in the second half. It was later revealed that Australia won the first semi-final, scoring 261 points, 140 points from the televoting and 121 points from the juries.

Voting during the three shows involved each country awarding two sets of points from 1-8, 10 and 12: one from their professional jury and the other from televoting. Each nation's jury consisted of five music industry professionals who are citizens of the country they represent, with their names published before the contest to ensure transparency. This jury judged each entry based on: vocal capacity; the stage performance; the song's composition and originality; and the overall impression by the act. In addition, no member of a national jury was permitted to be related in any way to any of the competing acts in such a way that they cannot vote impartially and independently. The individual rankings of each jury member as well as the nation's televoting results will be released shortly after the grand final.[12]

The following five members comprised the Australian jury:[12]

• Mark Cummins – Chairperson – broadcaster
• Christine Anu – singer, songwriter, radio DJ
• Alice Chance – composer
• Mark Humphries – entertainment professional actor, writer
• Lewis Hobba – radio DJ, comedian

Split voting results from Australia (Semi-final 1)
Draw	Country	Jury							Televote
		C. Anu	A. Chance	M. Cummins	M. Humphries	L. Hobba	Average Rank	Points	Rank	Points
01	Cyprus	5	13	8	14	9	12		8	3
02	Montenegro	13	9	4	12	13	14		16
03	Finland	10	4	9	9	10	9	2	13
04	Poland	11	1	11	7	1	3	8	6	5
05	Slovenia	15	14	1	2	12	7	4	11
06	Czech Republic	8	6	3	1	6	1	12	2	10
07	Hungary	6	2	6	4	7	5	6	10	1
08	Belarus	9	15	14	16	11	15		9	2
09	Serbia	2	10	7	13	4	8	3	12
10	Belgium	16	8	12	3	14	11		14
11	Georgia	7	3	10	10	2	6	5	15
12	Australia
13	Iceland	1	5	16	5	3	2	10	1	12
14	Estonia	12	16	13	15	16	16		4	7
15	Portugal	14	11	5	11	8	13		7	4
16	Greece	3	7	2	8	5	4	7	3	8
17	San Marino	4	12	15	6	15	10	1	5	6

Split voting results from Australia (final)
Draw	Country	Jury							Televote
		C. Anu	A. Chance	M. Cummins	M. Humphries	L. Hobba	Average Rank	Points	Rank	Points
01	Malta	20	8	18	16	12	18		7	4
02	Albania	14	14	24	21	20	21		23
03	Czech Republic	13	13	11	1	6	6	5	9	2
04	Germany	12	2	12	24	19	8	3	25
05	Russia	11	9	10	9	5	7	4	16
06	Denmark	21	12	13	6	16	17		17
07	San Marino	25	21	25	11	24	22		18
08	North Macedonia	4	4	14	5	4	4	7	13
09	Sweden	3	3	1	2	2	1	12	3	8
10	Slovenia	22	17	19	8	25	19		24
11	Cyprus	16	23	20	14	11	20		14
12	Netherlands	5	5	2	13	15	5	6	5	6
13	Greece	15	16	3	22	10	11		15
14	Israel	8	10	8	18	13	13		20
15	Norway	10	11	15	4	21	12		1	12
16	United Kingdom	17	22	22	20	17	24		22
17	Iceland	2	6	16	7	1	3	8	2	10
18	Estonia	24	25	23	25	23	25		12
19	Belarus	19	24	21	19	14	23		21
20	Azerbaijan	9	15	4	10	18	9	2	10	1
21	France	1	1	9	3	3	2	10	8	3
22	Italy	7	7	17	15	22	16		6	5
23	Serbia	6	19	7	23	7	10	1	19
24	Switzerland	23	18	5	17	8	14		4	7
25	Australia
26	Spain	18	20	6	12	9	15		11