The purpose of this study was to review policies and inquiries on national curriculum reform, initiated during the federal election campaign in 2007, to identify whether a new phase of national curriculum collaboration, characterised as standards-based reform, is likely to be initiated. A set of ten criteria, defining key features of standards-based education, was applied to analyse the contents of two policy documents and a report from an inquiry. The results showed that the documents reflected increasing refinement of the concept of standards-based education, but were only clear and comprehensive in their descriptions for four criteria. The conclusion recommended that policy making should be conceptualised in greater detail as a process of planned change, which a decision making body could apply to design a standards-based education system in a setting involving large change supported by a low level of knowledge. (Contains 1 table.)