Ms Mary Nash:

I thank Senator Carrigy for his questions. The basic income for the arts had approximately 9,000 applications and 2,000 people were selected. The vast majority of people who applied were found to be ineligible. The first payment was in August last year.

Research is going on and everybody who is in receipt of the basic income for the arts is asked to participate and answer questions. There is also a control group. People who applied but were unsuccessful were asked to participate in the research and many of them did so.

A question was raised earlier about paying artists. We all know that artists and performers are asked to do gigs for free - for the exposure, as they say. Over the last couple of years, the Arts Council has done incredible work to kill off that notion. We do not ask other people to do stuff for free.

One of the questions in the research asked respondents if they had noticed a reduction in the number of times as an artist they were asked to provide performances for free. The research is composed of a lot of questions about things like the discipline practised, where people are in the arts, how basic income has contributed to their development and whether basic income is doing any good. The first of the questionnaires was done recently. We will be doing them every six months.