I struggle to think of the attraction QF has over NZ when flying tran-tasman... and I say this as a QF WP who is only PS with VA. So I question whether the status match will change flying behaviour?
I fly this route pretty regularly, and ~50% of the time I fly with Air NZ. The 737 is an average plane (although I do tend to score row 4 a lot as a WP which is excellent), but traveling in Y on EK's A380 is worse in my opinion. The A380 J is a good hard product, but not any/significantly better than Air NZ 777 and I far prefer the 777 Y over both the QF and EK offerings.
I guess it could be a different story on other routes though...