Foreign affairs officials face a grilling over a further raid on Australia's aid program in the May budget.
More than $300 million will be siphoned from the program when it reaches $4.01 billion in mid-2018 and remain static until indexation resumes in 2021/22.
It follows $11.3 billion in cuts since the coalition government came to power in mid-2013.
Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade officials will be under pressure to justify the freeze during a Senate estimates hearing on Thursday.
Aid spending now equates to about 22 cents in every $100 of gross national income, a historic low.
Liberal MP Sarah Henderson says the government is making comprehensive investments in foreign aid, focused in Australia's region.
"We have saved something like $11.8 billion because of Labor's waste when it comes to management of issues concerning border protection and immigration," she told reporters.
Liberal colleague Luke Howarth says the point of difference between Labor and the coalition on foreign aid is targeted spending.
"Every dollar that we spend on foreign aid is spent wisely," he said.
"Unlike the Rudd government that was spending foreign aid on stopping boats and were giving billions of dollars to Indonesia... the Australian public are very clear they want us to spend foreign aid wisely."
Labor frontbencher Tim Hammond says the issue of foreign aid comes down to the question of fairness.
"What we see time and time again from this government, and this budget, is the notion of desperately latching onto this word without really understanding what it means," he said.
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