True, its a pure travel scholarship, with all likelihood the student won't even get to touch the money. It will all handled by the university's finance department (it was in my case). And $18k is huge for an Australian travel grant, they're usually just $2k to $5k, some examples:

$1.8k in Perth http://www.postgraduate.uwa.edu.au/students/funding/travel $1k to $2.5k at Uni South Australia http://www.unisa.edu.au/student-life/global-opportunities/tr... $2k to $3k at Ian Potter foundation http://www.ianpotter.org.au/travel

etc.