This study of school-based curriculum decision making was conducted within a large Western Australian secondary school which had a well documented history of innovation, at the basis of which was a participative decision making approach. The inquiry was designed in a longitudinal case study mode and involved the investigation of nine ongoing and eight posthoc strategic, or policy level, decisions. The whole process was found to be highly political in regard to the underlying actions and events which occurred over time. These actions and events were found to be characterised by lobbying to gain support for or against a particular course of action, with unequal distributions of power and influence among participants.