The pair, and their federal colleagues, will walk a tight rope in the next 12 months as they grapple with competing demands to help ''save'' Toyota and other companies such as fruit processor SPC Ardmona with a desire to scale back industry hand-outs in straitened financial times.

The federal Treasurer and Industry Minister argue wage costs in Australia are high, relative to other countries. Their call for workers and unions at Toyota to share the pain or face the car maker's exit should surprise no one.

OECD statistics show real minimum wages in Australia, in purchasing power parity terms, were the fourth highest in the grouping of 26 mostly affluent nations at $19.29 an hour in 2012. Australian wages are high in absolute terms, too.

The counter-argument is that wages as a share of national output fell in 2008, during the global financial crisis, to their lowest level since 1986. Real unit labour costs – the actual cost of workers – has also declined in relative terms in the past 25 years, while company profit shares have grown.

Treasury has forecast a rise in the jobless rate to 6.25 per cent – up from 5.8 per cent – in the mid-year budget update released in December, while economic growth is also expected to soften from 3 per cent to 2.5 per cent in 2014-15 and in the outlying years.

Make no mistake, Toyota's future manufacturing cars in Australia hangs in the balance in 2014. The company will decide this year which of its many car plants around the world will make the next generation Camry.

In Australia, the company says it must cut the per-vehicle cost of manufacturing cars by $3800 between 2012 and 2018. Not all of the money must be recouped by pushing down wages, but Toyota is attempting to cut employee costs by $17 million.

That push has been stymied by the federal court, although the company is appealing the case.

Costs will be a major guiding factor in Toyota's a decision on where, in its global operations, cars are made – be that in Kentucky, Nagoya or elsewhere.

The exit of Holden and Ford also puts pressure on component makers who have supplied all three car companies. Some will go under, making it tougher for Toyota to stick around.

Toyota workers are well paid, as they should be. They also enjoy conditions, described by MacFarlane as "archaic", that allow them to take four hours off, with pay, to donate blood.

The minister has also singled out other conditions, such as being able to take sick leave for up to five days without providing a medical certificate, as overly generous too.

But the economic argument for keeping Toyota in Australia is different to Holden and Ford; the company exported about 70,000 of the 108,000 cars it made last year, mostly the Middle East.

The Australian dollar is also coming off historic highs against the US dollar (Toyota exports in $US). If that decline in relative terms is sustained then there may be some hope for the car company.

And there is one, final, complicating factor. The Victorian Liberal government is facing an election in November. Premier Dennis Napthine is desperate to protect the jobs of Toyota workers in Victoria, and will pull out all the stops to do so. This state-federal divide threatens to be the source of some tension.

The new(ish) federal government has already demonstrated, through its tough line on Holden's exit, that it is not kindly disposed towards industry assistance for car makers.

The view of Liberal economic dries in the federal party room is that while they don't want the Japanese car maker to leave but the decision could be inevitable.

MacFarlane will push hard to keep Toyota in Australia. And he will be mindful, after seeing Holden exit, that he must take his federal colleagues with him.

As for Toyota, their next move is anyone's guess.