'In The Platform, Melani Anae tells the story of the Polynesian Panthers and the Dawn Raids of the 1970s in an open, honest and personal way, connecting it to her childhood and culture in a narrative that makes the reader want to know more.' – Sandy Leaitua, Tui Motu InterIslands
'[The Platform] teaches … what being human is, what our heritage means in an environment that is different from the one that was populated and configured by our forebears, how to connect, or reconnect with that environment and also perhaps how to guide younger generations towards a sense of cultural pride and security in their identities. For all these reasons, the reading experience offered in ‘the steel ink’ of Anae’s malu can only be warmly recommended.' – Grégory Albisson, Journal of New Zealand and Pacific Studies
'Comprehensive and wide-ranging, the first-hand account content gives the story an edge that, combined with its legacy approach, makes for a powerful and riveting reading experience.' – Heritage Library Awards
'Perhaps the book's most important function is to remind people that the Polynesian Panthers' mission is still relevant and continues today.' – Paul Little, North & South
'This is history as only Pacific people would understand. For it is people, not the events, that mark the annals of history – this is not the voiceless accounts but a fully fleshed experience of the times of the Dawn Raids and the first formal movements of the Polynesian Panthers.' – Kristoffer Lavasi’i, Kete
'This book is written in the first person and Anae’s writing is lucid and matter of fact. She eschews lush prose and favours a more conversational tone that gives the book a universal, inter-generational appeal and accessibility.' – Litia Tuiburelevu, Pantograph Punch
'In an honest, personal story, Dr Melani Anae looks back on 50 years of involvement with activist group the Polynesian Panthers, what led her there and how it changed her life.' – University of Auckland
'On June 16, 1971, a radical group of Pasifika and Māori men and women confronted state-sanctioned racism to form the Polynesian Panther Party... Like their navigating ancestors before them, the Panthers guided their people through a nation raging with rugby, racism and beer.' –Stuff
'In much of what they did, the Panthers were ahead of their time: no possession of drugs or alcohol during movement time, no weapons, equality of the sexes.' – Brad Flahive and Alex Liu, Stuff
'50 years ago... in 1971, a group of young Pacific Islanders in New Zealand formed the Polynesian Panthers to resist discriminatory policies of the time, such as the infamous 'dawn raids', which are now the subject of calls for an apology from the government.' – ABC Radio Australia
'Of the many events affecting Pasifika people in Aotearoa, the Dawn Raids story is overdue to be told. Long whispered about in secret family conversations, people have heard the words ‘Dawn Raids’ but not what really happened.' – Radio New Zealand
'Ardern's apology to Pacific peoples lacks concrete actions. We will continue the fight.' – Melani Anae, The Guardian
'We highly recommend... picking up a copy of [the] book, The Platform: The Radical Legacy of the Polynesian Panthers.' – Ensemble
'A new book highlighting a period of Auckland's late 20th century history. The Platform by Melani Anae explores the legacy of the Polynesian Panthers... It's also the author's personal story.' – RNZ Nine to Noon
'[Anae] looks at the political and social climate that gave rise to the raids — and the circumstances that led to both the police tactics against Pacific Islanders and the activism of the Polynesian Panthers.' – E-Tangata
'When the subject is the Polynesian Panthers, Dr Melani Anae, a senior lecturer in Pacific Studies at the University of Auckland, doesn’t have to depend on academic research. In her teenage days in the 1970s, in Grey Lynn, she was one of them. And she and her colleagues from those times have kept holding the Panther line in fighting for a fair go for Aotearoa’s Pasifika communities.' – Dale Husband, E-Tangata
