11 April. John talks with the press on the steps of Parliament about the Government's decision to block the sale of a shareholding bid by a Canadian pension fund in Auckland International Airport.

Partial transcript of John's responses to questions from the media:

There is a very simple message coming out of this and the implications of this are much broader than the Auckland Airport-CPP bid.

Labour has played politics and they've put that ahead of both investors domestically and internationally.

There will be a significant implication in the way that offshore investors now view New Zealand and that will have an implication both on jobs and our ability to raise money offshore. New Zealand is highly reliant on those borrowings from offshore and at a time when there's a substantial credit crunch and a substantial credit squeeze, this will have quite a wide-reaching effect.

It's totally blatant politics ...the Government sought independent advice from the OIO. That advice was quite clear. It said that there were substantial and identifiable benefits to the NZ economy.

That is in complete contradiction to the ruling given by the two ministers in question - quite frankly I'd be amazed if they even read the advice. They were just following the political advice of Helen Clark and Michael Cullen.

Michael Cullen spent a few years telling New Zealanders not to invest in the domestic residential property market (but to) put it in the stock market - and today he's just kicked them in the guts for doing that.

National would have followed this process: as long as we consider Auckland Airport to be a strategic asset, as long as 51% of Auckland Airport remains in NZ hands, if that condition had been met and we received the same advice the Government received from the OIO, then we would've let it proceed.

Labour made a decision a long time ago that they wanted to scuttle this deal in the name of politics - let's see how New Zealanders really feel about that. There will be implications here for all New Zealanders. I'd say the NZ Super fund has probably lost about $40 million on this deal (and) we're all shareholders in the NZ Super Fund.

This deal would've pumped $1.8 billion into the NZ economy. That would've put confidence back into our stock exchange. New Zealanders could well have re-invested...

New Zealand companies now, when they go overseas, will find it much more difficult to attract capital. We're hugely reliant on foreign borrowings and we're now sending a message to (overseas) the world, that we're not open for business. And by the way, this is happening in the same week that the Government is trying to tell people that we are open for business and we want free trade with China

The Canadians have spent a lot of money; they will be deeply frustrated with the changing rules of the game over here. Whether they pack up their tent and go away or whether they ultimately seek judicial review - that's something they'll decide

New Zealand businesses rely on foreign capital, they rely on foreign investment in New Zealand and in fact New Zealanders need to have confidence in the stock exchange - that's one of the things that will be eroded away from this deal.

The government can change the rules and they're completely schizophrenic about it - on Tuesday, Michael Cullen can't tell New Zealanders whether Vector is a strategic asset.

Le'ts be honest here - the Labour government didn't bother putting that in their press release because they were too embarrassed by the fact that the advice they had was completely contradictory to the decision they've made.

The reason for that is Clayton Cosgrave was told, along with David Parker, you do the right thing for politics, son, and forget about what's good for New Zealand, forget about the benefits...this is a political decision.

Now every time they make an investment in New Zealand, Kiwi mums and dads will think 'What's the politics?'. I can't see how that's good for the economy

Auckland Airport is already a listed asset - owned by a lot of Kiwi mums and dads, owned by all of us - we all have an ownership in it through the NZ Super Fund

If we are now going to undermine the whole confidence in our financial markets, that will cost New Zealanders jobs; it will cost them their ability to actually run companies over here. The implications here are much wider than the AIA versus the CPP - this will have implications for the way New Zealand is perceived. And we've worked long and hard to maintain that.

Michael Cullen knew all that, which is exactly why he made those statements when they passed the new OI Act in 2005, but guess what? They're 10 or 15 points behind in the polls, and they've decided that means to hell with our international reputation, this is now all about politics.

Well i think New Zealanders will push back very strongly about that because in the long run, they will understand that for a country that has a very low level of savings, that relies on (foreign) capital to develop jobs and growth, this is not a good move.