Kate-Miller Heidke soars at 64th Eurovision Song Contest to deliver Australia ninth place

In a tense and thrilling finish, Miller-Heidke performed the song Zero Gravity in an aerial ballet of pop, opera and Glinda-the-Good-Witch whimsy, securing a score of 285 points.

The contest was won by the Netherlands with 492 points, followed by Italy (465), Russia (369), Switzerland (360), Norway (338), Sweden (332), Azerbaijan (297) and North Macedonia (295).

After stunning performances in the rehearsal and semi-final phases of the competition, Australia had firmed as one of the favourites - along with The Netherlands and Sweden - with many observers confident the performance had the substance and style to win the competition.

Alas, it was not to be. As is often the case with Eurovision, the contest finished in a shambolic explosion of points in which, at times, North Macedonia, Sweden and Italy looked within reach of victory.

For many, the close brush with victory will bring a measure of relief; had Australia won it would have opened a Pandora's Box of pop and politics, an unprecedented capture of Europe's oldest and most lauded musical crown by a country outside the northern hemisphere.

Among the highlights of the grand final was a performance by pop icon Madonna; the 60-year-old legend performed her 1989 hit Like A Prayer, accompanied by a 35-voice choir, and the single Future from her new album, which she performed with the American rapper Quavo.

"Everybody here is from around the world and the one things that brings all of the people here tonight is music," Madonna told the telecast's estimated 200 million viewers. "Let's never underestimate the power of music to bring people together."

The grand final caps off a week in which delegations representing 41 competing countries converged on the Israeli city of Tel Aviv-Yafo in pursuit of Eurovision glory.

15 countries - Montenegro, Finland, Poland, Hungary, Belgium, Georgia, Portugal, Armenia, Ireland, Moldova, Latvia, Romania, Austria, Croatia and Lithuania - were culled in two intensely-fought semi-final heats.

That left 26 countries, from Albania to the United Kingdom, performing in the grand final, including Australia, the host country, Israel, and the so-called "big five", France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK.

The "big five" countries automatically book their berths in the grand final by virtue of being the five biggest contributors to the Eurovision Song Contest's organising body, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU).

The final score is calculated by merging scores from a five-member professional jury and audience "televoting" during the live broadcast; both groups each assign scores of 1-8, 10 and 12 points to any country except their own.

Those numbers have given the competition two of its most famous phrases douze points and nul points - pronounced dooze pwa and nul pwa - which translate respectively as 12 points and no points, the best and worst scores possible.

Australia's delegation landed in Tel Aviv almost two weeks ago, competing in the first semi-final of the competition to secure our berth in the grand final.

Miller-Heidke has now performed Zero Gravity on the Eurovision stage twice in full rehearsal and eight times in competition. The Eurovision machine requires four stagings each of the two semi-finals and the grand final.

Australia has a strong track record at Eurovision, ranking 5th, 2nd, 9th and 20th in 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018.

Though it is officially discouraged, clusters of European countries often vote in blocs, giving each other their highest scores, such as Cyprus/Greece, Denmark/Finland/Iceland/Norway/Sweden, Estonia/Latvia/Lithuania and so on.

While Australia has not properly fallen into a bloc, our delegation has a close relationship with Sweden which is usually reflected in the scoring; Iceland and the United Kingdom have also scored us well in past years.

This year's competition has been staged amid the complex political tensions between Israel, the West Bank and Gaza.

The activist group Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) led a vocal campaign to boycott the event, while the artists, with the exception of Iceland's Hatari, have largely refrained from making overt political statements.

Speaking on the eve of the grand final, Australian entrant Kate Miller-Heidke said all of the artists had "conflicting feelings" about the politics. "Who is it going to serve to deprive people of music, and art, and culture and learning?" she said.

The sentiment was echoed by the pop superstar Madonna, who released a statement to media saying she would "never stop playing music to suit someone's political agenda nor will I stop speaking out against violations of human rights wherever in the world they may be."

Despite a number of threats, both implicit and explicit, the two-week Eurovision festival ended without major incident, aside from the hacking of the Israeli broadcaster KAN's webcast of the first semi-final with threatening images.

Organisers said the interruption to the KAN webcast lasted only "a few minutes"; the main telecast of the Eurovision Song Contest and the official Eurovision web stream were unaffected.

The six-decade-old song competition has served as the launchpad for a string of high-profile artists, notably ABBA, who won in 1974 with Waterloo, Celine Dion, who won with Ne Partez Pas Sans Moi in 1988 and Brotherhood of Man, who won in 1976 with Save All Your Kisses For Me.