HI,

I'm a New zealander and my partner is Spanish. We are wanting to move back to New Zealand around October. We have decided rather than applying for residency from Spain (we're actually in Mexico right now so it's even more complicated!!), which would involve sending all documents to London, and waiting several months (we want to only spend a couple of months back in Spain), possibly having to go over for interviews etc. etc
Well rather than doing that, we're applying for a Work Visa -family stream (INZ 1015). This is much more convienient for us because we can apply at the embassy in Madrid and they've told me that it takes 2 -3 weeks to process (by the way, your partner wouldn't need a job offer or anything like that).
Then when we arrive in NZ we're going to apply for residency for him, and he can work while he's waiting for it. I know this sounds like doing things twice over, but it's the better option for us. And it will actually work out cheaper, because the fees in NZ aren't as high. Check out the Immigration NZ website and have a look at this option.
Good luck!