DEFENCE Minister David Johnston is promising to stabilise the nation's defence budget, but refuses to say when the government will start lifting spending.
Senator Johnston said on Thursday he'd inherited a "shambolic state of finances" when he took over as minister following the coalition's September election victory over Labor.
He said a lack of funds made it difficult to provide an emergency response to Typhoon Haiyan, which devastated islands in the Philippines in early November, killing thousands.
"What I have been confronted with as a new minister has been an absolutely shambolic state of finances," Senator Johnston told parliament.
"It is almost a modern miracle that when Typhoon Haiyan went through the Philippines, we were able to field two C-17s, a C1-30 and turn HMAS Tobruk around to deal with it.
"These are the sorts of things we are finding almost impossible to do because the resourcing of this portfolio has been plundered by the Labor Party for the last six years."
Senator Johnston said Labor had cut defence funding by $16 billion over four years.
Opposition defence spokesman Stephen Conroy used question time to ask Senator Johnson if he would stand by his election promise to lift overall defence funding.
"First of all, there will be no further cuts, no further cuts to the defence budget," Senator Johnston said in reply.
"We will firstly thereafter steady the ship."
The coalition has promised to lift defence spending by 1.6 per cent of gross domestic product to two per cent over the budget estimates.
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