E-hoons warned crackdown on modified bikes is coming soon, minister concedes it has taken too long

A long-awaited national ban on high-powered e-rideables and anti-tampering rules should be in place in early 2027, according to the Federal minister in charge.

Assistant Treasurer Andrew Leigh conceded that the crackdown had taken too long while in Perth for a series of public lectures on competition policy.

He called e-bikes an example of market failure.

“One of those technologies where governments have allowed the innovation to outpace what we do,” Dr Leigh told a Committee for Economic Development of Australia audience.

“On e-bikes, I think regulators would all wish that they’d moved a little more speedily.

“One of the parliamentary attendants was walking with a limp the other day. I asked her what had happened and she said, ‘Oh, it’s because my leg was broken by a person who hit me on an e-bike’.

“So these sort of injuries are happening across the country.”

A national ban was first flagged by WA Transport Minister Rita Saffioti in August 2025, while import controls were a key recommendation of WA’s Ride Safe report in December, which was sparked by 12 deaths since 2022.

Then-assistant transport minister Jessica Stojkovski said WA had to wait for a national framework before it could act on most of the recommendations.

“If we are to register vehicles that will go above 25km/h we need the Federal Government, from a safety point of view, to do the classification so that we can do the registration here,” she told Parliament.

Responsibility for e-rideables shifted back to Ms Saffioti after a reshuffle in August.

In September, she appeared to blame Canberra for the hold-up.

“We did put it on the national agenda,” Ms Saffioti said. “I’m happy to cross-check where they’re at, but we’d like to, of course, to see it done quicker.”

Dr Leigh told The West Australian progress was being made and set a target timeframe.

“Transport ministers are working to standardise road rules, and then the piece that I’m responsible for is working to get a national product safety standard, which we expect to have in place early next year,” he said.

“The ACCC is out consulting on that at the moment and I would expect the rules around that to look similar to the sorts of areas that the State and Territory road rules are focusing on: maximum speed, maximum power and modifiability.”

Dr Leigh said the onus would be on the states to police illegal modifications, but technology would make the rules harder to circumvent.

“What they call limp mode, in which the bike will only move at a couple of kilometers an hour. That can be useful as a disincentive to people who seek to modify it,” he said.

“The enforcement will be done by the ACCC and by the state and territory consumer protection bodies, including Consumer Protection WA.”