During his brief visit to the resort to speak about the tourism sector, Mr Key paid a visit and expressed interest in having a go on a flying fox at the top of the Skyline gondola, but said he was "under strict instruction not to".
The ride up the gondola came shortly after a press conference at the Crowne Plaza Hotel where Mr Key was questioned about a statement he made in Whangarei on Thursday about police having "a little bit of spare time", and the now infamous recorded conversation with Epsom's Act New Zealand candidate John Banks.
Mr Key referred to the recording as a matter for the police and moved on quickly to "issues that really matter", such as the reduction of core state sector employees to 36,500.
"I'm really confident the police will investigate the things they find important.
"That has nothing to do with me. The police are totally independent," Mr Key said about the investigation involving the recording.
"I think that is a matter for them and it would be totally inappropriate for me to get involved.
"I simply made a statement about what I felt was a potential offence against me and I asked them to deal with that matter; that's what any member of the public can do," he said.
"How the police go about their work is a matter for them and it would be hugely inappropriate for a politician to be involved."
When asked to comment on New Zealand First MP Winston Peter's claims, in Invercargill on Thursday, about what the tape contained, Mr Key refused.
"I'm not going to go there on that for obvious reasons.""The New Zealand public is interested in the issues that really matter and they're actually not terribly excited by the sideshows that are created as part of a media campaign." United Future leader and Ohariu MP Peter Dunne released a statement yesterday saying a quarter of the election campaign had been wasted by a "media obsession about what two men did or did not say over a cup of tea".
"At worst, someone said something mean about Don Brash, and not nice about older voters who support Winston Peters.""Phil Goff, the potential alternative prime minister, has not been in the news for a week now, and although I am not fighting his corner, it does show how ridiculous things are getting," Mr Dunne said.
The Prime Minister announced the New Zealand cycleway should be finished by the end of 2012 or early 2013 and that he planned to focus on the "high end" visitor in the tourism sector, if re-elected.
"The important thing with tourism is it's not just a bums-on-seat mentality; it's important in terms of bringing people to New Zealand in high volume, but they don't spend much; they don't add a lot to the equation."
Mr Key's Queenstown visit ended before noon when he left for appointments in Winton and Invercargill, before his return to Auckland.
