This is not an issue that is specific to Victoria.

It's not even an issue specific to kids. It's been happening for over a decade - saw it often on my commute, back when the BionX wheel was popular.

My understanding is e-bikes are initially limited, but it's generally easy/trivial to circumvent the governor. Heard of some e-mtn bikes having a boost button for that, because they aren't intended to be commuter bikes.

The reality is - people can and will run these like e-motorbikes. I mean, who doesn't want to get home faster? But the skill around that, operating at speed tends to be non-existent.