Despite a true-to-form, full of vigour and talent performance from Australia’s Jessica Mauboy, Europe was not feeling the love tonight in Lisbon, Portugal.
Australia received the lowest number of points for the European televote – receiving just nine – giving them a final score of 99 when combined with the jury vote.
In their short history at Eurovision, this was Australia’s worst showing in 20th place out of 26 competing countries. Their previous three representatives all finished in the top ten of their grand final competition, with Dami Im coming second overall in 2016 with 511 points.
A combination of strong competition this year, and a seeming inability to deal with the lack of LED screen capabilities leading to lacklustre staging by SBS, would seem to us as the strongest factors involved with Australia’s unfortunate lack of resonance with the voting public.
