TREASURER Michael Aird yesterday defended automated telephone calls developed by Labor to warn Tasmanians against voting Green, accusing critics of "moralising".
But Tasmanian Greens leader Nick McKim said Labor's "heartland" was outraged by the robocalls that he said wrongly declared it was Greens policy to legalise heroin and allow all prisoners to vote.
Mr Aird said it was Labor's intention to focus on the "serious issues".
"The moralising about the Labor Party's campaign, I think, is a bit rich the fact is the serious issues facing the Tasmanian people are the Liberal Party's policies and the Greens' policies which are going to potentially send the state into debt and are going to break the budget," he said.
Braddon Labor candidate Judy Richmond - a former member of the Tasmanian Greens - said she did not believe in negative campaigning and all her personal campaign had been positive.
"You just have to focus on the positives you have to offer ... people then can judge what policies they like," she said.
Ms Richmond said Labor should be open to working co- operatively with the Tasmanian Greens, given the possibility of a hung parliament after Saturday's election. "It's a democratic responsibility of parties to offer what the vote says."
The telephone campaign - which only ran on Tuesday - divided the Labor Party, with Franklin Labor MHA Ross Butler and a number of candidates and senior party members expressing outrage at the tactic.
ALP state secretary John Dowling said Premier David Bartlett was aware that robocalls would be included in the campaign but that he was not aware of when the calls would take place or what the content would be.
Mr Bartlett said he had suggested to campaign directors to review the appropriateness of the tactic.
Mr Dowling and Mr Aird said the calls were scheduled for a short period of time only and had not been pulled.
"They were scheduled to end (on Tuesday)," Mr Dowling said. "It's unlikely that there'll be any more."
Mr Dowling also said Labor would be "fairly and squarely focusing on the choice between Labor and Liberal" for the remainder of the campaign.
Mr McKim said the calls, which followed the distribution of a brochure claiming the Greens would legalise heroin, were an example of a smear campaign.
"This time Labor's gone too far," he said.
"Labor's heartland is outraged by what's happened. I say to Labor's true believers that this time it is safe to vote Green."
The South Australian Labor Party, which also faces an election on Saturday, has similarly put drugs at the centre of a scare campaign, in which it claims Opposition Leader Isobel Redmond supports illicit drug use - a claim that Ms Redmond has denied.