Acting prime minister Warren Truss says he has written to Holden's general manager asking for immediate clarification of the firm's future intentions in Australia.
Mr Truss said a statement released by Holden Australia's parent General Motors on Tuesday made no clear commitment to continue manufacturing in Australia.
"So today I have written to the general manager of Holden, Mr (Mike) Devereux, asking General Motors to make an immediate statement clarifying their intentions," Mr Truss said during question time.
Mr Truss said just two years ago the company was reporting sustainable profitability, yet now it had not ruled out abandoning manufacturing in Australia.
"They owe this to the workers of General Motors - let us not go into a Christmas period without them making a clear commitment to manufacturing in this country," Mr Truss said on Tuesday.
Treasurer Joe Hockey said it was important for Labor to back the government in calling on Holden to "come clean" and be "fair dinkum" with the Australian people.
It wasn't good enough for the car maker to say it hadn't made a decision yet.
"Either you're here or you're not," he told the chamber.
He said the best return on investment the government could make would be for Holden to invest its own money, make a profit and remain sustainable.
Asked about Mr Devereux's comment that the cost of losing the local car manufacturing industry would dwarf the cost of keeping it, Mr Hockey said: "There is no shortage of money that has been going to the motor manufacturing industry."
The treasurer said $1.1 billion was given to the sector in 2011 - equating to about $48,000 per manufacturing worker - and another $1 billion had been put on the table.
"There is a hell of a lot of industries in Australia that would love to get the assistance that the motor vehicle industry is getting," Mr Hockey told parliament.
"A hell of a lot of other businesses and foreign owned businesses that would love to be able to remit taxpayer money from Australian taxpayers to head office in Detroit, or London or Tokyo or anywhere else."
Labour costs were the main thing holding back the Australian car manufacturing industry, he said.
"If you really care about the motor vehicle industry I say to the Labor Party this - you ring up your good mates at the AMWU and you tell them to recommend to the workers at Toyota that they should accept the deal offered by Toyota on Friday," he said.
Industry Minister Ian Macfarlane said the government had processes to work through on car manufacturing, including a Productivity Commission review.
"We have a process and we are going to stick to it," he told parliament.
Mr Macfarlane said Labor wanted to "walk down the road spraying out taxpayers' money".
"The productivity commission will report to the government on March 31 and the government will respond to it," he said.
In the senate, government leader Eric Abetz said the coalition believed Holden and other car manufacturers deserved government support.
He said the coalition had already offered support in the form of abolishing the previous Labor government's proposed changes to the fringe benefit tax treatment of cars and repealing the carbon tax.
