title: Australia in the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2018
text: # Australia in the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2018
  
  Australia participated in the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2018 in Minsk, Belarus. The Australian broadcaster ABC was responsible for choosing their entry for the contest. Jael was internally selected to represent Australia in Belarus.
  
  ## Background
  
  Prior to the 2018 Contest, Australia had participated in the Junior Eurovision Song Contest three times since its debut in 2015, with the song "My Girls" performed by Bella Paige. In 2016, Alexa Curtis represented Australia with the song "We Are", achieving fifth place. In 2017, Isabella Clarke represented Australia with her song "Speak Up" , achieving third place.
  
  ## Before Junior Eurovision
  
  On 1 September 2018, it was announced that Jael had been internally chosen by the broadcaster to represent Australia.
  
  ## Artist and song information
  
  ### Jael
  
  Jael Wena (born 22 December 2005) is an Australian singer of Congolese descent who represented Australia at the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2018 with the song "Champion", finishing third.
  
  In 2019, she competed in the season 9 of Australia's Got Talent, and in 2022, she took part in season 11 of Australian edition of The Voice.
  
  ### Champion
  
  "Champion" is a song by Australian singer Jael. It represented Australia at the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2018.
  
  ## At Junior Eurovision
  
  During the opening ceremony and the running order draw which both took place on 19 November 2018, Australia was drawn to perform twelfth on 25 November 2018, following Italy and preceding Georgia.
  
  ### Voting
  
  The same voting system that was introduced in the 2017 edition was used, where the results were determined by 50% online voting and 50% jury voting. Every country had a national jury that consisted of three music industry professionals and two children aged between 10 and 15 who were citizens of the country they represented. The rankings of those jurors were combined to make an overall top ten.
  
  The online voting consisted of two phases. The first phase of the online voting began on 23 November 2018 when a recap of all the rehearsal performances was shown on the contest's website Junioreurovision.tv before the viewers could vote. After this, voters also had the option to watch longer one-minute clips from each participant's rehearsal. This first round of voting ended on Sunday 25 November at 15:59 CET. The second phase of the online voting took place during the live show and began right after the last performance and was open for 15 minutes. International viewers were able vote for a minimum of three and a maximum of five songs. They were also able to vote for their own country's song. These votes were then turned into points which were determined by the percentage of votes received. For example, if a song received 10% of the votes, it received 10% of the available points.
  
  