Insiders are waiting to see whether changes will be made to a ban imposed by the former Environment Minister on trawling activities around Tasmania.

A massive super-trawler called the Abel Tasman is operated by aquaculture company Seafish Tasmania, but has been banned from trawling southern waters for the last year after former Environment Minister Tony Burke imposed a two-year stoppage.

Industry experts and environmentalists will be waiting to see what shape the country’s environmental future will take with the swearing-in of a new federal government, especially when it comes to clashes between commerce and environment.

The ban was imposed after widespread outrage that fish stocks were being hammered by the floating factory. Tasmanian Liberal Senator Richard Colbeck, set to become the new Parliamentary Secretary to the Agriculture Minister, says he wants fish stocks surveyed again.

Senator Colbeck was keen to reiterate that science would be involved, saying: “Once that scientific work has been done, then we will make our decision based on the science... I have to say across the board where I have been having those conversations, and I've had plenty of them, that's what people want... they want decisions made on the science.”

For the last year the Abel Tasman has been operated in waters from which it is not banned. There had been outcry after the ban that it may have been based on unfounded fears, rather than full evidentiary findings.