Travel insurance and when to get Spanish health insurance

Your husband, as a non EU national, will be applying for RESIDENCIA, not an NIE    His NIE will
be the number that will be on his residencia when it is issued

We moved to Spain a few years back, as part of the visa process we needed to have medical insurance.  We got that at time of our visa submission, which means approximately one month before our arrival in Spain.  So, we had medical coverage even before we arrived in Spain.
That coverage, however, is only WITHIN Spain, the time you are still in Australia, and the short duration of your travel to Spain, would not be covered by that policy.  So you may want "travel insurance" for that time period; but it should be short.
FYI, our policy for 3 people (Me 62 years old, wife 48 years old, son 16 years old) was Eu 320/month the first 2 years, reduced to Eu 220 year 3.  And that was a higher-end policy.  From my perspective, inexpensive but your opinion may be different
Good luck and regards

Thanks for the info... I think we’ll just get 2 months ‘travel insurance’ for the family as a starter... hopefully it won’t take longer to National identity cards etc and then get health insurance in Spain. Because we are Spanish citizens we don’t need anything specific for entry...

I would suggest getting travel insurance for a time to allow you to research the best private care once you get here.

Just a thought ;   

I would think `travel insurance´ may only cover people who are travelling, thus you may need different cover if you are moving here. as you say.  That is, once your traveling has ended so may your cover.

PS before you think I am being stupid.  Insurance companies always try to avoid paying out.