I have no personal experience with Australorps, but almost everything I've heard about them has been that they do make good pets. One of the local chicken people near me has one and she's a very friendly and personable chicken.
Anyway, for other breeds there are going to be tons of suggestions. Orpingtons are supposed to be good pets and decent layers. We almost got them when we were originally planning on keeping only one breed but didn't because the hatchery didn't have them available at the same time as some of the other breeds we wanted. My speckled sussex are very friendly, in the way, kind of birds and are hardly bothered by my almost two year old. However, mine are not cuddly lap birds if that's what you're looking for. And mine are not the awesomest egg layers. They both lay every day to every other day, but their eggs are generally medium sized, with only a few getting up to the 2oz large size.
I do adore my Easter Eggers. However, I am very conflicted about recommending them because I have had some issues. We ordered 4, received 5, and kept 3. As chicks they were pretty flighty, not really all that friendly by most standards. Once they reached point of lay however they have become more friendly. They are extremely tolerant of my toddler, to a fault in fact. Of my 3, only one of them hasn't let my son pick them up and carry them awkwardly around the yard. One of my EE's was the first to start laying and two of them are among my top 3 layers, laying almost every day. And their eggs are usually med-large with more of them being large than medium and about once every two weeks an extra large or two from them. However, of the 3 we kept only one of them does not have an issue. One we kept because of her deformity, she has a cross beak and because we weren't sure if she would be able to eat enough to survive I felt that I couldn't just pass the problem on to someone else. She does all right, but she is definitely smaller than all the other chickens and because she needs a deep "dish" of food to be able to eat at all I have to accept that there will be a lot of feed loss as she and the other birds spill feed on the ground while eating. Plus, while her eggs are a beautiful shade of green and solidly in the med-large size range her yolks are a very pale yellow because she is unable to eat any of the greens that the other chickens get. The second one has no apparent physical abnormalities, but is a total dud when it comes to eggs. We have 7 chickens, but I always say that this one doesn't count. She is the least reliable of my layers, sometimes going a week or more between eggs. And when she does lay her eggs are shell-less as often as not. When her eggs do have a shell to them, it is paper thin and will crack if it so much as touches another egg in the nest box or if someone gets in the nest after it is laid to lay her own egg. And on a regular basis I have seen her lay two eggs, an egg covered in a second membrane and albumin (almost like it was trying to be an egg within an egg), and even "siamese" eggs. I'm also not convinced she isn't an internal layer too. She's very friendly, and an excellent forager. But I'm seriously thinking about culling her this fall rather than continuing to "waste" feed on a chicken that isn't producing and waiting for her to become egg bound.
