This paper outlines the complex contemporary milieu of Australian teacher education within which curriculum leaders responsible for designing teacher education programs must make their program design decisions. Particular attention is paid to the collision of vertical ("hierarchical" or "academic rationalist") and horizontal ("flat" or "student-centred") curriculum discourses as a program design problem that has emerged within the current context; how it is intensified by an unexpected alliance between progressivist and new managerial curriculum discourses; and how this problem may be amplified in graduate entry teacher education programs. This paper concludes with a provocation to see the curriculum tensions and conditions outlined as offering a challenging design problem for the current generation of curriculum leaders responsible for the assembly of teacher education programs.