hi Charliedane
I moved here in September, to Christchurch - I posted quite a lot on the 'Christchurch, NZ.....looking into poss of emigrating, anyone know area well' thread.
for me the paperwork was pretty easy as my parents are Kiwis and I have citizenship so probably not the best person to advise on that (DH and DD had to apply to join me and that was a palaver but they were always fairly certain to get residency, we just had to jump through all the hoops).
Most people who come will come in on the Skilled immigrants scheme, where you need to collect a certain number of points for entry - the points are given for things like qualifications, area of work (some get a lot more as we're short of those professions in NZ), age, bla bla bla. You can find all the info on this on these sites here and here . There is quite a lot of paperwork and medicals etc. and at the moment it takes quite a few months and costs a bit of cash.
healthcare - there is public healthcare, am about to have my 2nd baby here and so far it's about 100 times nicer than the NHS in London! (and all free apart from a small payment for scans) It's easy to find a GP (you can more or less go to any one you like), but you do have to pay a small amount per visit. They have Plunkett nurses, simlar I think to health visitors. But operations etc., there will be waiting lists like in the UK - not as extensive usually, but all the same problems with lists being closed, waiting for ages for non-emergency treatment etc. Lots of people do have private health care insurance, and there are lots of private hospitals.
The BEST thing is just life is so much easier - no sitting in traffic for hours to do things, no waiting for ever at the doctors/midwives/garage. We live in the catchment area for 2 great primary schools now - back in London I have NO IDEA what we were going to do for DD. We bought a 3 bedroom house in a nice area outright with the equity on our crappy flat so we are mortgage free which is bliss. However, cost of living is not as cheap as one might think - when you bring over your sterling on the great exchange rate you feel pretty flush, but once you are living in dollars it's not that cheap. The wages - especially here in Christchurch - are not 2.8 times (the approx exchange rate) the equivalent in pounds, but lots of things (books, CDs, electrical goods, food, airfares, some brands of cars) are getting towards 3 times the equivalent in pounds so they are a lot more expensive relative to your income IYSWIM. Houses are much cheaper here in ChCH than they are in Auckland/Wellington - and they have all the same problems as the UK with people not being able to get on the housing ladder as the average house price compared to the average income is getting further away.
BUT we live 20 minutes from lovely beaches and 15 minutes from the city centre in a great area with a view of beautiful hills from the front of the house. We can walk to all kinds of lovely places, life is laid back, people are friendly, and it's really child friendly. There are lots of great leisure/sports facilities which you can actually use without it being a total hassle, great libraries, art galleries/museums/lots of events going on.
The worst thing is being so far away from family and friends, but I think we have all agreed it's definitely worth it for us. We were always going to come to ChCH becuase my parents are here and because we love the South Island (if you want fabulous outdoors/scenery/space/quality of life you can't beat it), but there is definitely a wider range of jobs available in the bigger centres of Auckland/Wellington. Where you move to kind of depends on what you want to do. But I can tell you, we have not regretted it at all. It is a major commitment though, I would suggest a decent recce visit to NZ before you commit to moving. Once your stuff is on a container travelling halfway round the world, you don't want to change your mind!