So you've already seen recommendations. If you haven't started to build your own list of potential hosts yet, do that. You can probably afford to be really picky about them, and leave only those that seem the best. Then do whatever you can to evaluate them. Send a presales mail or order an account if they've got money back guarantee.

I'd suggest you to check out Hawk Host, EuroVPS, Fresh Roasted Hosting, StableHost and Arvixe. Not a recommendation, I'm using only one of them myself.

If they are just for SEO purpose, then why to choose multiple hosts? Purchase a hosting from resellerclub.com, purchase dedicated IPs for each domain and host all sites under a single account. It will save you some money as well as will make the management more easy. It will give you the diversity in links.

Fast.
Cheap.
Quality.

Pick two.

IP addresses have nothing to do with SEO.

First of all, this is no easy task. Maintaining a network of sites just for linking to a main site is difficult task. For your links to have any value, you will have to do link building for each of the sites. May be be better take the same efforts to build links to your main site and you will have better results.

Local hosting helps, and that is a fact accepted by Matt Cutts himself. I am not saying you can't get 1st position in AU without hosting in AU, but it is a lot more easier if you do local hosting. You have the option to target AU in webmaster tools, but I feel local hosting would make it a lot more easy.

In case you want to proceed with your orginal ideas, I would say, select 4-5 reasonably well known hosts and don't bother too much, since your idea is to simply create links to your main site. Hostgator, A Small Orange are okay - I know they had some negative publicity during the datacenter change, but that is past now. Most oversellers are more or less same and I don't see any reason why you should go for a premium service.

Check this - Hosting, stabilne serwery wirtualne ! Tani hosting! - Linuxpl.com The best and very cheap hosting company from Poland.

this is the best seo hosting I know SEO Hosting - SEO Web Hosting with cPanel and Multiple Class C IP Addresses

So you need multiple account/location hosting or just one?

Hello mate,
As you say that you don't want to build a network with SEO Hosting then you need to find different hosting and locations not only one.

Definitely get different hosting companies, if you have allot of domains in your network you can use the same account and do a few addon domains to save costs.