Greens leader Bob Brown says his party's surge in the ACT election sounded a warning to the major parties to either catch the Green wave or risk being dumped by the electorate.
The warning came as the ACT Greens prepared for talks with the Labor and Liberal parties in the next few days, having secured three places in the Assembly, with the possibility of a fourth, their best result in the territory.
The party's three Assembly Members-elect Shane Rattenbury, Meredith Hunter and Amanda Bresnan continued to celebrate with a family barbecue yesterday after Saturday's poll rewarded the Greens with 15.8per cent of the vote, a swing to them of 6.6per cent.
They admitted to initially being a little overwhelmed by the result on the night, but by yesterday were looking forward to meeting the main parties and discussing their role in the next ACT government.
The prospect of a hung Parliament, leaving Labor and the Liberals with seven seats each, gives the Greens a strong chance of gaining one or two cabinet posts.
However, none of the Greens were ready to make any claims yesterday, and Ms Hunter and Mr Rattenbury said they would not be rushed into any deals before the count was completed over the next 10 days.
''There's a good two weeks here to talk about these things,'' Mr Rattenbury said.
''We're talking about the next four years for Canberra. We don't have to rush this in the next 24 hours.''
Ms Hunter said the result was a clear rejection by Canberrans of majority government.
''They wanted to see a new Green future for Canberra, some fresh ideas and some new faces in the Assembly,'' Ms Hunter said.
''I think we ran a really positive campaign, and that was one of the key aspects of our campaign which really set us apart from the other parties.'' Senator Brown said the latest count showed there was an ''even money'' chance of the Greens winning a second seat in Molonglo.
He said it would be only a matter of time before the major parties made formal approaches to the Greens.
''We simply are seeing a total change in the way in which societies work in this country and around the world, and we need to catch that wave. The Greens believe in riding the wave and the old parties are in great danger of being dumped by it, and people know that.''
The Greens share the balance of power in upper houses in state parliaments in South Australia, Victoria and NSW.