Australia needed a "wild card entry" to get onto the shortlist of potential locations for CSL's new manufacturing plant, director Christine O'Reilly said.
But in the end we lost out because we were a long way behind Switzerland, Ireland and Singapore in terms of tax competitiveness, Ms O'Reilly told the The Australian Financial Review JPMorgan Chanticleer Lunch. 
CSL, a Melbourne-based, global blood products company, awarded a new manufacturing plant to Switzerland in 2014 even though the intellectual property for the process had been developed in Australia.
"There were a number of countries on that list to start off with and Australia - I probably shouldn't say this - I suspect, got a wildcard entry into that list for obvious reasons.
"We wanted them on the list," Ms O'Reilly said.
"In the end, of the four that got to the shortlist ... Australia came a whole long way behind, in respect to the attractiveness to develop and build and continue to operate advanced manufacturing - as a consequence of tax rates, in essence."
CSL's investment decision is being used as a spur to boosting Australia's competitiveness in advanced manufacturing to help fill the gap in economic activity and high-wage jobs left by the collapse of mining investment.
The government has established an advanced manufacturing "growth centre" as part of this effort and extended $40 million of funding to an innovative manufacturing co-operative research centre to boost the effort.
Ms O'Reilly said issues such as Australia's bad reputation for industrial relations and position in global supply chains had begun to be dealt with more and more over the years.
But she said the "key issue, and one that's within our power to manage much more effectively, is around tax rates".
CSL has proposed a preferential 10 per cent company tax rate for advanced manufacturing that uses Australian-developed intellectual property as a measure to further the government's goal of boosting advanced manufacturing.