Some voices have been louder than others, particularly from the 31 members of the three waters opposition group, Communities for Local Democracy.
A survey by Local Democracy Reporting of all 291 mayoral candidates before the elections showed over 75 per cent were against the reforms. In Whangārei and Hawkes Bay all candidates were opposed.
Among the new mayors elected over the weekend are some who made opposing the reforms a point of their campaigns, including Auckland's Wayne Brown (though his predecessor Labour-aligned Phil Goff was also a Three Waters sceptic, seeing very little benefit for Auckland).
Meanwhile, on the other side Wellington's new mayor Tory Whanau appears more supportive than her predecessor Andy Foster.
Alongside the general shift to the right, National and Act have claimed the local election results are a "rejection" of Three Waters.
A spokesman for Ardern told the Herald most councils had at least agreed to "change the status quo" around upgrading water infrastructure.
The legislation was before the select committee and the Government was "listening to the views being expressed".
Ardern told RNZ this morning she didn't feel the local election results had shifted the dial.
"Across the country we still had 37 mayors re-elected ... and that local government as a whole has supported reform," Ardern said.
"I think that's a reflection that whilst there are many who have expressed a view on Three Waters, you haven't had anyone arguing the counterfactual - and that is, if we stick with the status quo that they would support rate rises, which is the inevitable outcome.
"That is the reason we are pursuing this - the alternative to Three Waters is rate rises in the thousands because of the additional water infrastructure that is required, no one's out campaigning on that."
The select committee was currently processing submissions, she said. Its report is due in November.
"We are in a phase though where we have [it] before select committee, we're hearing submissions, and we've been open to changes, to try and make these the most effective changes that we can, because they are so necessary," Ardern told RNZ.
Amid rising opposition to the reforms, the Government brought together nine mayors and nine iwi representatives to find their own solutions, in the end accepting nearly all the group's 47 recommendations.
Despite this, the vast majority of the more than 88,000 submissions made on the Three Waters bill raised some concerns.
Groups like the Taxpayers' Union and the National Party collected at least 78,000 submissions they said were in opposition to the reforms.
While most large interest groups agree water reform is necessary, there is strong disagreement over the Government's proposal, which would implement a form of co-governance between councils and Māori, and over the level of council control over the four new water entities.
They will be owned by councils but they will have very little ability to control them.
The Government's proposal would have councils and mana whenua represented on a regional representative group, they would jointly appoint an independent selection panel, who would appoint the entity board.
It is this structure that has caused the most controversy. It means the four entities are co-governed because mana whenua have an equal stake with councils as the group the entities are ultimately responsible to; it also means local councils have almost no day-to-day control over their water services like they do now.
Auckland Council submitted taking away its control over water services would create problems for its role in urban planning because stormwater is heavily integrated into the work it does planning around new developments, roads, and parks.
Auckland Council has already gone part way down the path to water reforms. Council-controlled organisation Watercare already manages freshwater and wastewater services for Auckland, but the council kept control of stormwater.
Another concern was that Auckland's share of the governance of its water entity would be diluted under the reforms, with its share of the governing votes on the new water entity dropping to 28 per cent.
Castalia, a consultancy working for Communities 4 Local Democracy, proposed an alternative that gave more power to councils and has Māori input at the community level, which would walk back the Government's co-governance proposal.
It also argued councils could fund the same amount of investment as the Government's Three Waters reforms plan, for the next 20 years without needing to compulsorily merge water services, impose water charges or change councils' debt caps.
Councils could choose to keep their own independent water services, like Auckland's council-controlled organisation, Watercare, or they could merge the provision of water services under a single umbrella. It is likely smaller councils would merge water services.
Castalia also proposed relaxing debt caps for water-related investment. This would allow councils to borrow more to finance investment in water. It also proposed revenue bonds, which would be a debt instrument directly tied to water revenue.
