David Unwin/Stuff

Greens candidate Ali Hale Tilley and NZ Firsts Antony Woollams, bottom right, discuss the End of Life Choice Act at a pizza and politics debate in Palmerston North.

Palmerston North youth have debated and discussed with election candidates key issues from euthanasia to the voting age at an energetic pizza and politics debate.

The Palmerston North Youth Council hosted city electorate hopefuls Nationals William Wood, Advance NZs Sharon Lyon, along with Rangitkei candidates, NZ Firsts Antony Woollams and the Greens Ali Hale Tilley, for a traffic light debate on Thursday.

The young audience and the candidates grouped around a green table if they agreed with a statement on a key election issue, a yellow table if they were undecided and a red table if they were against it.

Each group then had an internal discussion about why they held their views, then put forward a candidate and an audience representative to debate the other tables.

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The first issue, the End of Life Choice Act referendum, was the most evenly split of the afternoon.

Although the majority of the young people stood with Tilley and Woollams in favour of the act, there was a strong undecided contingent. Six youths stood against it, along with Wood and Lyon.

Tilley said it was a matter of allowing people with terminal illnesses to die with dignity, when they chose to.

The green tables youth representative said most of them decided based on what they would want for themselves in that situation, and a few such as him had watched loved ones suffer a terminal illness.

Ive had family members diagnosed with cancer who became husks of themselves, who told us they would rather have had a choice like this would allow.

David Unwin/Stuff

Candidates at the pizza and politics debate were, from left, Antony Woollams, NZ First; Sharon Lyon, Advance NZ; William Wood, National; and Ali Hale Tilley, Greens.

Wood said allowing euthanasia would open Pandoras Box, and it was ripe for abuse and mistakes that could influence vulnerable peoples decisions.

Under the End of Life Choice Act, two doctors would have to agree a patient would be dead within six months before they could choose euthanasia.

Wood had talked with doctors who told him they were wrong about a quarter of the time when a patient was expected to have less than three months to live. That rose to 50 or 60 per cent when it was six months.

An undecided youth said she worried disproportionate numbers of minority, poor or disabled people would be euthanised.

It wouldnt be fair, for people to feel pressured to choose euthanasia because their family couldnt afford palliative care, she said.

The audience was decisively pro-choice when it came to abortion and in favour of lowering the voting age to 16.

Woollams backed up a young woman who said 16 was the age of consent, when people could first apply for a driver licence and must be paid a minimum wage at work, which theyre taxed on.

Theres an old slogan, no taxation without representation. If youre old enough to work and be taxed, youre old enough to vote, he said.

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Palmerston North youth chew on pizza and politics with election candidates - Stuff.co.nz