Philip Salmon

[15] At his election, Salmon pledged to support the Shiels ministry but reserved the right to oppose individual measures.

[25] In July 1894, Salmon vehemently opposed a women's suffrage bill, successfully filibustering the legislation and making a speech so offensive that Hansard refrained from publishing its full text and newspapers refused to even quote from it, with one newspaper describing the speech as "most disgusting from first to last".

[26][27][28] Salmon defended himself by saying that he "gave it in a more jocular mood" and that only 28 members had been present in the chamber at the time, while complaining that even his local newspaper The Standard (which he had previously owned) had not published the speech.

[31][32] Three weeks later, Salmon finished last in a failed attempt to regain his old Port Melbourne council seat, though he declared that he was "perfectly satisfied" with the result.

[33][34] He was absent from parliament, reputedly due to ill health, when the Patterson government was defeated on 30 August, forcing a general election.

[35] Salmon did not contest the 1894 election and retired, which he later claimed was due to the "embarrassments" of his financial position at the time.

[40] In June 1896, he testified at a parliamentary inquiry into the controversial collapse of the Mutual Benefit Society of Australasia, of which he had been a founding director.