Deputy leader and climate change spokesperson Christine Milne said the Greens were largely responsible for the implementation of the current carbon price proposal.
"If we hadn't achieved the balance of power both in [the lower house seat of] Melbourne and in the Senate then this would not be happening, because as you all know neither the government nor the coalition went to the election with a policy or a carbon price," Milne said.
"They wouldn't have done it had we not signed the agreement with Prime Minister [Julia] Gillard that she set up a multi-party climate committee with a view to delivering a carbon price."
Milne said while there were many good outcomes from the package, she hoped to increase the strength and breadth of the scheme with time.
"We've ended up with a package which is a negotiated outcome. The Greens would have greened it up further if it had been our own package, but what we have on the table is a platform for further action right across the board."
A core part of the message was continuing to campaign for the inclusion of petrol into the carbon price.
"The transport issue was a disappointing outcome," Milne said.
"The Greens supported fuel being in the emissions trading scheme; we wanted it to be as broad a scheme as we could get. But [independent MP] Tony Windsor felt very strongly about keeping fuel out."
Milne said that both aviation and shipping fuel were included under the scheme, but not domestic petrol.
However, she said "we got an agreement with the Productivity Commission that they would have a look at fuel excise system in Australia at my request and that fuel excise would increasely reflect the level of [embodied] energy within the fuel".
Another area of contention for the Greens was compensation for coal-fired generators.
"We didn't support compensation going to coal-fired generators, but we had to agree to some of that,” Milne said.
“However, we got contracts for closure, so 2000 MW of the dirtiest brown coal will be closed. The government will be calling for expressions of interest for those 2000MW to close in the very near future."
Milne said that meant certain closure for Victoria’s Hazelwood power station.
Despite a number of negotiated outcomes, she said the Greens were pleased with many aspects of the scheme. Most promising was the initial price under the carbon tax and the floor price to follow under an emissions trading scheme.
"It's an emissions trading scheme, starting with a fixed price of $23, rising to a price of $25.40 or thereabout when it goes to flexible trading in 2015," Milne said.
"We've managed to secure a floor price, so even when it goes to emissions trading in 2015 there will be a [minimum price of] $15, $16, $17 from 2015, 2016, 2017, so that people who are now looking to make investments will have some certainty on what the price will be out that far."
Milne said this made the scheme stronger than the scheme offered by former PM Kevin Rudd in 2008, which would have begun with a carbon price of $10 in the first year and would now be the international price of $18.
Further, the scheme would have removed a range of complementary measures that now have been offered.
One complementary measure Milne highlighted was the establishment of the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA).
Other measures the Greens were happy with included the limitation of international permits to 50% of a company’s total offsets and a biodiversity fund, which will include $948 million over the next six years for rural projects to protect ecosystems.
