Hellaby Holdings chief executive John Williamson also reckoned New Zealand should "make more noise in Australia."
"Hit the Aussie market hard and kill the unproductive domestic suppliers," urged a company chairman.
And according to Veda's John Roberts, we should "encourage more Australian companies to outsource service centres to New Zealand subsidiaries and lower the corporate tax rate."
Kiwi under-arm bowling aside, it is obvious New Zealand's lower overall corporate tax base, labour costs, less bureaucracy and regulation and the ease of doing business here, present an opportunity to entice Australian companies to invest more here.
Beca NZ managing director Don Lyon urged "sell the benefits of NZ locations and establish a package of incentives for investors in regions with adequate resources and talent."
At the 2011 Australia New Zealand Leadership Forum, Finance Minister Bill English caused a stir by suggesting New Zealand should compete - rather than collaborate - with Australia. But at last year's forum, English was feted by the Business Council of Australia, which was so despondent with the Gillard Government's economic management that Australian CEOs (half-jokingly) suggested it should be outsourced to New Zealand.
That's not happened, but jobs have, notably Heinz which shifted 300 jobs from Queensland to Hastings and the growing array of call centres moving here. Last month, Australian Financial Review editor-in-chief Michael Stutchbury sounded the alarm about Aussie jobs being offshored here because Australia's cost-base was too high.
Stutchbury's letter to subscribers was sublimely ironic given the AFR had itself out-sourced subbing roles to Auckland.
But the broader point was not lost.
English may have been "right all along" but CEOs also cautioned New Zealand should not be blindsided as the bigger game is in Asia.
"Ensure that NZ is a great place to live and work, " said the LGFA chair Craig Stobo.
"I'm not sure that Australia should be the alternative competitive benchmark if we are going to compete with Asia."
An investment banker suggested rather than playing up lower wage rates as an advantage New Zealand should be ensuring compensation rates were more aligned with Australia.
"Maintain a strong, simple and stable set of economic policies orientated towards growth," said Auckland International Airport chief executive Adrian Littlewood.
"Build up New Zealand as an attractive and dynamic place to live.
"We must appeal both to the CEO and CFO but also to staff as an attractive place to live, and that means ensuring Auckland, in particular feels like an international city."
Three out of five CEO survey respondents are confident the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership deal will result in a net benefit to New Zealand. "We are already an open market. The more that is reciprocated, the better off New Zealand will be," said a wholesale trade CEO.
The TPP talks seek to liberalise trade among 12 Pacific-Rim nations. Some CEOs said domestic discussion on TPP was unbalanced. "It would be great if the mad anti-free trade campaigners didn't dominate the debate," said a Government specialist.
But roughly one-fifth of CEO respondents believed there will be no net benefit from a deal and a similar number are unsure.
"Several key areas of potential NZ growth relating to IP, copyright and new technology may be sacrificed and these are potential game changers for our economy," cautions South Pacific Pictures chairman John Barnett.
"The TPP process lacks transparency for New Zealand taxpayers and the business community," says Craig Stobo, chairman of the Local Government Funding Authority. "It is now a much more unwieldy beast with too many countries now party to it."
The 18th round of the Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade negotiations began in Malaysia last week. Japan is expected to hold the floor today. With Japan's participation, the TPP countries will account for nearly 40 per cent of global GDP and about a third of all world
