The purpose of this study was to gather information concerning curriculum autonomy from secondary school staffs across Australia. The information required was obtained from the data bank of an Australia wide research study entitled 'the Curriculum Action Project (CAP)'. The present enquiry consisted of a detailed analysis of responses to two open ended items included in the CAP questionnaires, which were returned by 586 respondents (principals, heads of department and teachers) from 98 secondary schools.