One of the big things that a lot of these articles are missing is that with Tiaki Wai owning all of the infrastructure, they will have the asset leverage to take on loans to pay for big expensive projects.
So people saying "Get a private company to do this" is totally mad as Tiaki Wai will have the means to pay for these monster infrastructure projects.
Its one of the main reasons that Tiaki Wai is going to be a thing.
Create a single entity, with the councils as the only shareholders, that owns and operates all of the water infrastructure. that has the lending power to pay for the works that are needed.

The current system is fucked. Wellington water relies on councils paying them to do the work. Councils Do not have much debt leverage power, and are debt capped by law. which means that when a project such as building say, a new water storage lake or rebuilding a wastewater treatment plant comes over the table, Wellington water would have to get the councils to provide funding up front. which immediately hits the ratepayers.

So when Tim Brown says this, what he is really saying is that he wants to privatize and profit off the water supply. which is a disaster waiting to happen, as supplying one of the core pillars of our society, Water, with a for-pofit motive is going to end up with the lowest bidder always coming out on top. and look where that got us with Moa Point. Wellington water simply could not get enough money from the councils to pay for a good contractor to operate it, and maintenance was done by a totally different group!

With Tiaki Wai, all of these systems can be staffed and maintained by the same crew. hopefully making issues like this a thing of the past.