"Pacific Helmets and Q-West boat builders are doing very well and they are just getting on with it so you don't hear about them every day."
Mr Smith said it had been a good year for tourism in Wanganui this year despite the June floods and the river was a big attraction.
"It's not even being on the river so much - people place spiritual value on it and even a non-spiritual person like myself understands that because I enjoy being close to it," he said.
Kris Faafoi is Labour's spokesman on commerce and employment and he was interested to know how the chamber members see Wanganui's employment situation.
"We do have businesses here needing staff but they find that prospective employees often fail drug tests which is frustrating for them," said Mr Lindsay.
Mr Smith suggested that basing a government department in Wanganui would be good for the city and bring people in and Mr Hipkins agreed that it could work.
"It would not necessarily need to be a whole department - you could move part of DoC operations here and it could could work very well," he said.
The MPs later met with Rise Stopping Violence Services in St Hill St and Jenny Salesa had specific interest in discussing housing needs in the region.
Ms Salesa said the Government has sold a high number of houses in the Wanganui region during the past year and she is concerned there may not be adequate emergency housing.
"Of 519 houses that have been sold, 104 of them were in this region and it is a real concern because things like the Christchurch earthquakes and the floods you had here in June happen so there needs to be emergency housing available," she said.
"There are always families in need and a responsible government should be providing that housing and now that non-government agencies like the Salvation Army and Habitat for Humanity have said they do not want to become social housing providers there is concern that housing might be sold to overseas investors."
The visit also included a meeting with the Whanganui District Health Board as well as a visit to Ucol where tertiary education spokesman David Cunliffe was keen to discuss new figures showing the Government's decrease in funding to Ucol appears to be a directly related to a fall in student numbers.
"Ucol had its overall government funding slashed by $4.4 million in 2011, a 12 per cent drop from the previous year, and this has resulted in courses being dropped," he said.
Mr Cunliffe said the arts courses in Wanganui have been the "jewel in the crown" of UCol and he is disappointed to learn that some of those courses and the people who taught them have been lost.
"Labour wants to see UCol succeed and be economically viable into the future and after meeting with staff, I found their thinking to be woolly and muddled in terms of attracting more students.
"There is a market for more trades and foundation training because there are 1300 young people in the region who are not engaged in training or employment.
Mr Cunliffe said the campus was wonderful and he could see the work that has been done to build new composite courses but he said with just 600 students, they only had half the number they had in 2008.