ACT party leader David Seymour gave his supporters a history lesson on Tuesday, claiming the Māori chiefs who signed te Tiriti would be ACT supporters.
But the idea was swiftly laughed off by Te Pāti Māori.
The speech was billed as the "Road to Real Change", but it seems the road started way back.
"Once upon a time rulers placed little or no value in a person... Galileo looked through his telescope and saw Jupiter's moons… the Enlightenment changed all that."
Throughout the speech, Seymour moved through history. By the time he got to 1840, he said the Treaty of Waitangi was written in the shadow of the Enlightenment.
"Limited government, self-determination, property rights and equality. I reckon the chiefs who signed the Treaty would sign up to ACT today."
But Te Pāti Māori isn't buying it.
"You're kidding me," said Te Pāti Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. "Seriously, David you do one speech in Māori and suddenly you're an expert on everything te Tiriti.
"ACT would be the last party to know what the rangatira were thinking and would be supporting when it comes to Te Tiriti o Waitangi."
Seymour isn't convinced the Government are on the Enlightenment waka.
"We hear the exact opposite from the Government. What matters is not the content of your character, what matters most is your skin colour or background."
Sounds familiar?
"Where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character," Martin Luther King Jr once said.
The idea was quickly shut down by the Prime Minister, who said that's not what the Government believes.
Seymour didn't hold back on the Government.
"They want to tax the most carbon efficient farmers in the world broke… Only Labour could damage the economy and the environment with the same."
There was no friendly fire for National either.
"National Governments don't actually oppose Labour policies. They just want to manage them."
He listed those Governments off afterwards.
"Sid Holland, Keith Holyoake, Rob Muldoon, Jim Bolger, John Key - all failed to change Labour's policies."
