The Opposition Leader made it clear to the 20 or so alcohol interest-group representatives he was not expecting them to debate the issue that actually triggered the forum: the controversial 70 per cent tax increase on alcopops announced by the Government earlier this year.

In his opening remarks, Dr Nelson said he accepted that some of the leaders at the forum would back the Government's tax increase while others would oppose it. However, his "very strong view" was that there was a problem with alcohol abuse that was "overstated to some extent by various sections of the media and some people in public life".

Geoff Munro, chief executive of the Australian Drug Foundation, said there had been no discussion of the alcopops tax because "Dr Nelson made it clear that the Liberal Party would not support the tax". Mr Munro said he supported it. "There's every sign the tax is working as intended," he said.

Dr Nelson's supporters produced two Queensland school students, Angela McGuiness and Rhys Reynolds, both 17, to argue that the tax was a flop because their mates were just buying bottles of vodka and rum instead and mixing it. "Before when we were buying our premixed drinks we knew how much alcohol content there was. Now people are mixing drinks for us and we're just writing ourselves off quicker," Rhys said after the forum.

Bill Healey, the chief executive of the Australian Hotels Association, said the alcopops tax was "a budgetary measure wrapped up in social policy packaging".

He backed Dr Nelson's assertion that binge drinking was not a worsening problem among young women and that the biggest drinkers of such ready-to-drink products as rum and coke were men aged over 25.

Daryl Smeaton, chief executive of the Alcohol Education and Rehabilitation Foundation, said: "It's terrific we're getting together … to talk about our biggest drug problem, which is the abuse of alcohol."