INDEPENDENT Senator Paul Richards on Wednesday said children were taking cues for their own conduct from parliamentarians whom they saw in broadcasts.
He was supporting a motion to adopt a report by the Senate's Privileges Committee urging Opposition Senator Anil Roberts to say sorry for an online broadcast of his programme Douglar Politics critical of Senate President Christine Kangaloo.
Richards began by recounting to senators the William Golding novel Lord of the Flies, in which, he said, stranded boys were driven by two competing instincts, civility versus savagery.
He said from the days of the country's first prime minister Dr Eric Williams, Parliament witnessed strong disagreements, but had a level of civility such that the public, especially children, could look up to parliamentarians to emulate.
"We need to realise that children are looking on," Richards said, "and modelling behaviours and getting their behavioural cues from their perceived leaders in society."
He said sometimes he viewed certain parliamentary exchanges with disdain.
"We cannot then seek to chastise generations coming for their behaviours because all they are doing is modelling us."
Richards said if Parliament did not enact a due process to try to correct behaviours and allow for contrition, it would be telling the general public, especially children, that such behaviour was acceptable.
"You can go then to your classmate and treat him or her in a similar manner. Then we descend into chaos and anarchy in society, and that cannot be allowed to continue."
Richards said senators were subject to the most vitriolic comments, but in fact had signed up for that.
He said the Senate President regulates the Senate and may act as head of state.
"So there are implications for imputations about the integrity and reputation of the chair, even in a wider context.
"The protection and defence of this institution is one which we must all uphold vigorously."
Richards urged senators to protect each other's integrity both inside and outside the chamber.
"If we descend into that realm of seeming or being perceived to attack each other, and even more so, being allowed to attack each other in an unchecked manner, then it's going to turn in to a free-for-all, because very often members of the public take their cues from us."
Richards said senators must take ownership of their mistakes. He recalled having sat on the committee of privileges, where in two separate cases individual senators had been invited to apologise and had done so.
"And that was the end of that."
Sometimes people underestimate the power of a simple apology, he said..
Alternatively, if senators let such situations continue, they would be abdicating their collective responsibility and sacred duty to protect Parliament and democracy in Trinidad and Tobago.
Richards earlier said, "Our presence in this chamber is a privilege, hence the committee of privileges." As social media was now so pervasive, the matter was important matter, he said.
He said Roberts had be
