Port Phillip poll: Mouse wants to be in the house

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IF St Kilda voters haven’t heard of Port Phillip council hopeful Wayne Thompson, it may be that ‘‘Mouse’’ is more familiar.

He’s so well known by this nickname that the Inkerman Street resident convinced the Victorian Electoral Commission to let him use it on the ballot paper in the local government elections, to be held this month.

“I had to prove that I was known as Mouse,” he says. “I had to show them newspaper clippings and even my business cards.”

The former professional ice-skater says the name Mouse was bestowed upon him because he was “quick and nimble” on the ice. “The name just stuck,” he says.

Mouse set up Australia’s first rollerblade business in Acland Street in 1989 and hosted community skating events for Port Phillip youth until 2003.

He now works as a maintenance manager but says he’s banking on a few votes from the kids he taught to skate in the ’90s.

“All the kids that used to rollerblade in St Kilda are in their 20s and 30s now and they’re voting,’’ he said. ‘‘They only know me as Mouse.”

The Junction ward candidate, who campaigned for a skate park on the St Kilda foreshore, will run against sitting Greens councillor John Middleton on stricter laws for high-rise development, a crackdown on noise and light pollution and support for the arts and live music in the city.

“We’ve lost what was here when I first came to St Kilda 30 years ago,” Mouse says. “Now I’m jealous when I go to Fitzroy because we used to have that.”

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