Abstract: Since the mid 1980s performance-based planning has been actively promoted as a way of achieving more sustainable land-use planning outcomes in Australian cities and regions. This paper outlines an institutional framework for better understanding and learning from the mobilisation and practice of performance-based planning in Queensland under the Integrated Planning Act 1997 (IPA). Within Australia this case is significant as the first institutional attempt to embed both ecological sustainability and performance-based planning at the heart of state-wide statutory land-use planning amidst a pervasive political agenda of micro-economic reform. The proposed framework offers an empirical lens through which to examine and learn from the way ideas are imported, adjusted and brought to bear through urban strategies that seek to support and promote ecologically sustainable development. The paper concludes by re-emphasising that performance-based planning is a shifting institutional construct able to be appropriated by both regressive and progressive agendas.