Labor will launch a major review of where Australia's soldiers are stationed if the party wins government at the next federal election.
Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese on Wednesday used the 70th anniversary of the nation's ANZUS treaty with the United States to pledge the first "force posture" review since 2012.
"With the US again engaged in a Global Force Posture Review, it is time for Australia too to have a closer look at our own posture to ensure that it fully meets the times," he told parliament.
The review would ensure the government is looking at long-term strategy as well as short-term needs with the Indo-Pacific a key focus.
It would also respond to the emergence of cyber security as a central challenge to Australia's strategic positioning over the coming decade.
Former Labor leader Bill Shorten made the same promise before the 2019 federal poll.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison declared deep United States engagement in the Indo-Pacific region would be crucial to the coronavirus pandemic recovery.
"Together we have always supported a world that favours freedom," he told the lower house.
"Our alliance and America's deep engagement in our region is essential as we look to rebuild from the pandemic and shape a free and open Indo-Pacific that is stable, secure and prosperous."
Mr Morrison said Australia was confronting the most challenging strategic environment for decades which would also pose issues for the US and other regional allies.
"Our alliance will stand resilient in the face of these challenges as we nurture and refresh our commitment to one another."
China's increasingly assertive stance in the region shapes as a critical piece of the international relations puzzle for Australia and the US.
The prime minister said the ANZUS treaty now spanned security, defence, intelligence, new technology, boosting supply chains, supplying vaccines in the Pacific and tackling climate change.
"Our alliance is based on a friendship that has never demanded the silence or indeed censure of its critics," Mr Morrison said.
"Rather, we tend the tree of liberty across the Pacific."
Mr Albanese called for an immediate boost to co-operation with the US on climate change with Australia increasingly isolated over its action globally.
"While so much of the region's immediate focus is the response to COVID, its more profound concern is climate change," he said.
The prime minister, Defence Minister Peter Dutton and America's charge d'affaires Michael Goldman laid a wreath in Canberra to mark the anniversary on Wednesday.
September 1 is 70 years to the day when the treaty was signed in San Francisco, confirming the two nations' alliance and shared vision for the region.
Coronavirus scuppered plans for the event to be marked with a face-to-face meeting between Mr Morrison and US President Joe Biden.
The prime minister is expected to speak with Mr Biden this week.
