Under overcast skies last Sunday afternoon, the Victorian Greens held a party at the Fitzroy Bowling Club to celebrate 10 years of MPs in state Parliament. Shortly before the cake was cut and the band started playing, rookie politician Ellen Sandell made her way to the microphone.

In a speech peppered with anti-Labor sentiment, the Melbourne MP – who recently became the first Green to snatch an ALP seat in Victoria's lower house – told the crowd they had a lot be proud of. Daniel Andrews' decision to dump the East West Link? It might not have happened without the threat to Labor's inner-city electorates, Sandell declared. The push towards assisted dying laws in Victoria? The Greens put up a private members bill years ago and had been campaigning ever since.

Credit:Michael Leunig

Or what about the government's renewable energy targets and other environmental gains? These too, she argued, had as much to do with politics as good public policy. "Do we really think Daniel Andrews would be crowing about investing in renewable energy if he wasn't trying to win back votes from the Greens and hold the prized seats of Northcote, Richmond and Brunswick?" she said. "Just having Greens threaten to win Labor seats can make change – even before we've won them!"

There's no doubt the Victorian Greens have done pretty well in an electoral sense: the 2014 election gave the party its first two lower house seats (Melbourne and Prahran) and a record five spots in the Senate-style upper house. But to get a sense of what it's been like to have the Greens at Spring Street over the past decade, it's worth reflecting on what they have achieved.