In a veiled reference to the Labour and Green parties, Mr Harmos said stability and consistency were needed by the markets to provide capital at the lowest cost to businesses.
Labour and the Greens propose nationalising New Zealand's electricity market, spooking some potential investors in the partial sell-down of Mighty River Power.
Global capital allocators had choice as to where to invest. Uncertainty around the regulatory framework for the Government's mixed ownership model - partial sell-down of state-owned assets - was the most recent, but by no means the only, example of regulatory uncertainty and change that had affected several New Zealand leading companies.
KiwiSaver providers, managing money for New Zealanders of all generations and circumstances, were already sending large proportions of their funds offshore because of a perceived lack of suitable opportunities in this country, he said.
''In so doing, they are providing capital to economies and businesses other than our own. It would be a tragedy if this is perpetuated and domestic first-time investors are also put off investment here because of perceived risks in investment in New Zealand - the very environment which we should support and have home advantage - especially now that product choice is emerging.''
Mr Harmos said the New Zealand public capital markets were in the best shape he could remember. KiwiSaver, and growth in savings generally, for the first time time had the critical companion of a reasonable flow of quality product. The Government's mixed ownership model might introduce many more tens of thousands of new investors to the market.
''This contribution to building relevance of financial products for New Zealanders is a huge opportunity for New Zealand, our capital markets and people.''
Markets and financial investments were becoming almost as mainstream in conversations and media as was the ''irrelevant'', and that was progress. A savings and investment culture, with quality product and good results would do much to remove the hard-to-fathom still-lingering doubts caused by the 1987 era and legacy of poorly structured privatisations and ''hot air balloon'' companies.
''It really is time for this country to move on from that period of the excuses for inactivity and suspicion of financial markets that still lurk in the cave,'' he said.
''The reality is that financial security and wealth are created by ownership of financial and other assets - not salary and wages alone.''
The health of the markets was demonstrated not only by pre-registration in Mighty River Power, but also the successful execution of a large number of other primary and secondary market transactions, Mr Harmos said. Those included some of real scale and others in the pipeline.
At the annual meeting on Friday, the NZX signalled an end to its unconventional dividend policy, which had tied the stock market operator to stepped increases of not less than 1c a share since 2009.
The company declared a first-quarter dividend of 1.25c a share and expected to pay 5.6c for the year. That was based on a dividend policy introduced in 2009 that switched the payment focus to cents-per-share of operating earnings rather than the previous 60% of net profit and locked the company into minimum annual increases.
''The board anticipates that from 2014 the company will move to a more conventional payout ratio policy, subject to the normal solvency, working capital and capital expenditure caveats,'' NZX said in a statement.
