Dale and welcome.
Sorry to read that you had a bad 2007. Let's hope 2008 will be a fresh start for you and your family, starting with a job offer in NZ for you. Fingers crossed.
Here's some background info on
Manukau and a list of suburbs you can look into. I don't know if you can glean anything from this
neighbourhood support site . There are problems with gang wars in areas such as Otara, Mangere, Papatoetoe and Otahuhu so, places to avoid.
Some
more info on the area which is aimed at the tourist but may give you some idea of what's available and
this is the local council's site. Here's
a map of the area that you can drag around and zoom in on to see where the various suburbs lie.
Apologies for no personal experience of the region.
You may have to hunt around the job market to get a salary anywhere near the one in the UK as they are often notably lower in NZ, but that's not to say well-paying jobs don't exist, especially in the cities.
If your OH isn't too sure about staying long term in NZ, perhaps you'd be better off looking at a Work Permit to begin with. The process is a lot simpler and much cheaper than going for one of the other 'heavyweight' visas and will give her time to see for herself how she likes the country. You can always go on from there to apply for PR if things go well and you will have some NZ work experience under your belt by then to help with your application.
Shipping a dog? I think it can cost around the 2k+ GBP mark including vet's fees, but others can help better with this.