The Greens have great potential to initiate major reforms.

There are several reasons why the Greens may initiate and achieve major reforms in the coming two years and beyond.

The Greens have the balance of power in the Senate and one MP in the House of Representatives. In Julia Gillard they have a PM who is a good negotiator and who realistically accepts reform proposals that might otherwise not even see the light of day. In the face of enormous media pressure and misinformation, she remains steadfast and calm.

The Green-ALP partnership arrangement and the present low electoral stocks of the ALP will require them to examine and often accept broader Green initiatives. The Hung Parliament provides additional progressive Independents' involvement, that could take policy and system reform well beyond the generally dreary adversarial fare dished up by the dying two-party tyranny of recent decades.

This could well become more than just a breath of fresh air. We should remember that the power of the Senate in the Australian political system is potentially considerable. The final paragraph of section 53 reads: "Except as provided in this section, the Senate shall have equal power with the House of Representatives in respect of all proposed laws."

Views expressed by conservative commentators recently that the "Greens have peaked," based on political history, might well be mistaken. Gerard Henderson's statement is premised on the view that the two party system will restore itself and absorb the positions of (temporary) minority parties.

The reality is that the two party system is in crisis and is unlikely to survive it. The current Opposition leader Tony Abbott is assisting in wrecking it, a historic event waiting to happen.

The adversarial Australian political system has clearly been unable to make use of an existing earlier consensus on the climate change question. First Rudd and then Gillard withdrew from the initiative in the face of parliamentary opposition and self-interested industries, while a majority of MPs were actually in favour of moving forward.

It is nonsensical and dishonest to accuse Gillard of a lie now because she promised not to introduce a Carbon Tax during the 2010 election. The election result, a Hung Parliament, made it necessary for either major party to enter into a partnership agreement to achieve a parliamentary majority. Gillard succeeded with the Greens and enough Independents. This is just another drawback of the two party system, but it meant that some of the election promises could not be maintained.

This precedent, to operate as an effective catalyst for reform, suggests that the Greens could also argue to have their existing policy for proportional representation adopted as soon as possible. It would obviously be both in the national and their own interest, especially if the Open Party List System is adopted (rather than MMP or Hare-Clark).

This requires the voter to just make one mark on a party list ballot paper to indicate a preference for a party and a particular candidate. A simple replacement of the 1918 Commonwealth Electoral Law, which grossly favours the major parties, would fix that.

Remarkably, Green parties in very many other countries have already benefited from P. R. mostly in continental Europe, but also in Ireland, New Zealand and South Africa. With a PR system all the people's votes become meaningful. After the election a number of parties combine in a coalition based on a negotiated common platform, to ensure majority support in the parliament.

The political culture changes from adversarial to a search for common ground.A very lively PR debate is happening amongst Greens in the US and in Canada as well, especially in Virginia and Ontario.

Even actor John Cleese got into the act of explaining proportional representation in the UK, in 1987.

There are however many other policy and system reforms that could be started now, most of which could improve the national system of governance. It would also demonstrate that the Greens clearly are not just a party for the environment, but that they indeed have a range of other objectives.

Some are highlighted here and others proposed. It would be quite wrong to assess Green policies through the prisms of socialist or capitalist ideologies. The paradigm has changed dramatically. History does not in fact repeat itself. Their motivation goes well beyond the class struggle.

Bob Brown has already called for revisiting the Resources Super Profit Tax of the mining industry that was severely watered down by the Gillard government.

In an excellent research paper Naomi Edwards demonstrates that no less than 83% of the mining industry in Australia is foreign owned. In 2010 the after-tax profit margin was 31% (as compared to 8% of Australian industry). In the next five years foreign owners will earn about $265 billion thus further increasing the percentage of foreign ownership.

Surely, most Australians would find this an intolerable situation, aggravated by the outrageous salary packages and bonuses of their CEOs and other executives.

Have our politicians and economists ever heard of the Norwegian model of economic development and ownership of national resources? The Norwegian model actually has shown the way a nation can maintain and grow economic sovereignty.

The media inquiry recently proposed by the Greens' leader, following the immoral behaviour by executives in the Murdoch Media Empire, is a timely call. While the activities in the UK and the US may not have been copied here, the general standard of reporting by sections of the media in Australia clearly leaves much to be desired.

Some tabloid journalists and several populist shock jocks are continuously spreading misinformation about the Carbon Tax on behalf of their paymasters. The description "scaremongering," regrettably, is apt indeed. It is abuse of freedom of speech.

It is therefore essential and totally justified that the Gillard Government now embarks on a $12 million advertising campaign. The Gillard-Green-Independent partnership has produced an excellent product but, thus far, it has not been marketed well.

The position taken by the Greens on refugee policy is already another major step in the right direction. Senator Hanson-Young is the one who articulates this best. All refugees should be treated fairly under The UN Refugee Convention. Asylum seekers must be received, accommodated and processed on Australian soil. If they are determined as refugees pursuant to Art.1A(2) of the Refugee Convention, then they are allowed to live and integrate into Australian society. Therefore there should be no Pacific solution and no Malaysian solution. Regrettably, the fundamentals of this issue are being avoided by both major parties.

On constitutional change the Greens are pro-Republicans but still seem to maintain a Minimalist position; it doesn't go further than a Republic with an Australian Head of State.

The Greens favour strengthening local government, a positive position, but there is no realisation that this needs to be assessed in the context of strained and increasingly dysfunctional, costly federal-state relations. Local government is the Cinderella of the current constitutional system, an appendix of the ever-weakening state governments.

The replacement of the federation by a system of superior decentralisation, e.g. including ROC type mezzanine regions, requires an approach that reaches outside the square. It has obvious environmental advantages, amongst many others. Re-writing the Constitution is part of the answer here.

Issues that are somewhat understated in Green policies would be workplace democracy and employee share ownership. The adversarial industrial relations culture, reflected in the workplace by employer and management interests versus that of workers and unions, continues to be an unresolved issue.

Legislation for employee share ownership and participation by employees in decision-making, in the hope of bridging this divide, has been slow to develop in Australia. The positive effects of such legislation elsewhere in the world, post WWII, are well established.

In Australia there have been some excellent voluntary examples, including the Fletcher Jones and Staff and Lend Lease. In both cases, staff fully participated in the development, ownership and decision-making of the business, resulting in excellent outcomes.

Research at ACIRRT(Sydney University) and more recently, Melbourne University Law School,highlights that workplace democracy and employee share ownership have beneficial results for a business and should be encouraged by government action.

Nevertheless, major barriers exist in Australia, for instance tax complexity, management and union attitudes, to promote this growth. The Greens could make a significant contribution here as well.

How far could the Greens move on such issues before the next election? Very far, as they have an excellent team of educated, committed politicians, coupled with competent staffers. Draft legislation could be introduced in the Senate. At the very least major public inquiries could be started - of short duration, making full use of existing reports and recommendations, but very often not acted on.

Publicity would certainly be generated in the process. The public at large, through the media, should become involved in a reform debate. The era of major party stagnation and wasteful adversarial debate could come to its long overdue end.