I don't know for sure and I can't back this up with where I saw it but I'm sure I read about a situation like this before. It may have even been on the NZIS site where you can see declined applications and why they weren’t approved. Maybe someone more knowledgeable could supply the link.
It was a parental application rather than child but some things sounded the same. The parents were living in one European country with children scattered around in others. One in NZ, others back in the home country and one somewhere else. They applied to get in to NZ as a parental application using the one child here who was a perm resident. Their application was declined because although they weren't living in their country of citizenship there was a child still there. NZ immigration argued that the could easily move back to their home country and be with the children living there which made them ineligible for the parental visa application. Again I can’t back this up but I would do some serious research into the plan before trying it. It all just sounds very easy and seems like a very open loop hole that would be extremely easy to take advantage of. You never know though, NZIS isn’t always logical.