Treasurer Wayne Swan has dismissed calls to artificially lower the Australian dollar, saying such moves would be "dangerous" for the economy.
The dollar briefly broke parity against the US currency late on Friday for the first time since it was floated on the foreign exchange market in December 1983.
The currency subsequently eased back to below 99 US cents on Monday.
In a ministerial statement on Monday, Mr Swan said he understood that a high dollar would have an impact on trade-exposed industries such as tourism, manufacturing, agriculture and education.
But he said the opposition's suggestions to lower the value of the dollar would lead to higher inflation and higher interest rates, "and with a collapse of confidence in the management of the Australian economy".
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"This would hurt our manufacturing, agricultural and tourism industries, as well as homeowners right around country," he told parliament.
He said such suggestions were "dangerous".
"Because it risks fracturing the long held bipartisan consensus on the floating exchange rate," he said.
"The floating of the dollar was one of the big changes which made our 20-year record expansion possible."
Mr Swan said it helped Australia manage both "positive and negative shocks".
"Any action to artificially lower the value of our currency would also encourage retaliation from our trading partners, not something that's in the interests of our export industries," he said.
He also dismissed the opposition suggestion that the government's fiscal policy was feeding the rise in the dollar.
"If this logic were true, with larger fiscal deficits in the US, we would see the US dollar appreciating against the Australian dollar, not depreciating," he said.
"The fact is Australia has one of the strongest fiscal positions in the developed world."
