Tame Te Rangi is a New Zealand civil servant, administrator and sport commentator. Of Māori descent, he identifies with the Ngāti Whātua iwi. He has held roles relating to the New Zealand Qualifications Authority,[1] Te Māngai Pāho,[1] Ngati Whatua[1] and Hato Petera College.[2]
In the 1990s Te Rangi worked for the New Zealand Qualifications Authority,[1] where he establish contacts which later got him a job at Te Māngai Pāho, working for chief executive Trevor Moeke.[1] Conflicts of interest between his Te Māngai Pāho roles and later-developed sports commentating roles for Maori Sports Casting International (which received funding overseen by Te Rangi from Te Māngai Pāho) were revealed as part of a campaign against Te Māngai Pāho by politician Rodney Hide.[3] [4] The affair cost Te Rangi,[3] Moeke[5] and chairman Toby Curtis[6] [7] their jobs. It also emerged that in the early 1990s Te Rangi was convicted of fraud for stealing almost $40,000 from a Ngāti Whātua trust and served five months in jail; Te Rangi had not been asked about previous criminal convictions prior to being offered a full-time job.[1]
In 2015 Te Rangi chaired the selection panel for Auckland Council's Independent Maori Statutory Board, which was involved in a high-profile legal and political battle with Auckland Council and candidate Willie Jackson.[8] [9] Jackson and Te Rangi are both on the board of Hato Petera Trust.[10]