Hockey’s Northern Services Pty Ltd (HNS) is a Katherine-based property, grounds, landscaping, and cleaning services provider, established in 2022 and servicing Katherine, Tindal, the Big Rivers Region, the Barkly Region, and East Arnhem.
The business is led by Managing Director Ben Hockey who has grown it into a trusted, multi-disciplinary service provider supporting residential, commercial, government, and community clients across the Northern Territory.
HNS is built on a strong foundation of professionalism, reliability, and quality workmanship, with a clear focus on delivering practical, compliant, and cost-effective solutions tailored to the unique conditions of the Top End.
Our Story
2022 - Before HNS.
The story of Hockey’s Northern Services begins before there was ever a Hockey’s Northern Services.
Benjamin Hockey grew up knowing what hard work & community means. His family owned a cattle station, so long days, machinery, problem solving & mateship were a second language for him.
Ben’s passion originally lied in pursuing a mechanical trade — but while starting down that pathway, he began mowing lawns around Katherine as a side-gig.
Ben’s mechanical trade opportunity fell through, which was a crucial turning point for him. At this time, he decided to go all in on lawn mowing work.
2023 -
An Official Start.
By February 2023, Ben had made the decision to purchase a company name rather than continuing to run solo. This was the birth of Hockey’s Northern Services.
By this time, Ben had been working alongside NT Home Services, a company providing lawn care, gardening and cleaning to the community. This company later decided to close, at which time Hockey’s Northern Services purchased its clientele and contracts. This was one of the first major steps in establishing HNS as a company known and relied upon by a larger number of locals in the region.
Not long after, Hockey’s Northern Services began looking beyond residential work towards larger, commercial & government opportunities while remaining faithful to the community — continuing to provide lawn & garden care services to locals across Katherine & surrounds.
2024 -
Expanding our Horizons.
By 2024, HNS was growing beyond simply mowing and caring for lawns & gardens. Clients were asking for more — and rather than directing business elsewhere, the business began investing in the skills & equipment to deliver these services in-house.
HNS began to deliver landscaping, irrigation, vegetation management, ground spraying, treelopping, pressure cleaning, fencing, small earthworks & broader property maintenance services. The business was also beginning to equip itself for larger commercial, regional and government opportunities.
Another large milestone for HNS in 2024 was the purchase of the clientele and equipment of Spic and Span Cleaning Services — a reputed, local cleaning company in the Northern Territory. That acquisition helped establish cleaning as another genuine offering at HNS.
In 2024, Hockey’s Northern Services made the transition from a small lawn and garden business into a multi-service contractor capable of solving all of a client’s property needs comprehensively — inside & out.
2025 -
Established in the Community.
By 2025, Hockey’s Northern Services was unrecognisable. The team, the resources & the scope of work had evolved and HNS had become a powerhouse in the NT community - a business that looked entirely different to the operation Ben had started a few years earlier.
Residential customers remained an important focus in the business, but HNS was increasingly working with commercial organisations, community & government-related clients.
Despite this growth, Hockey’s Northern Services retained its’ brand identity and reputation as a reliable local business in the community. Flyers to residential clients were still dropped in letterboxes around the area, frequent social media posts showed before-and-after transformations of local lawns and properties, and customers still knew who they were dealing with when they heard the name ‘Hockey’s Northern Services’. HNS, while becoming more structured and commercial, remained a Katherine-based business built around people and relationships.
2026 -
The Year It All Changed.
2026 became a defining year in the story of Hockey’s Northern Services. It was a year of significant growth and expansion, but it was also a year that tested the values of HNS in a community that needed help.
March 2026 - Standing With Katherine.
When severe flooding threatened Katherine in March 2026 - the priority shifted from business to helping the community survive. Ben, the HNS team and locals around Katherine began sandbagging and flood preparation. What began with members of the community simply doing their part quickly grew into a much larger effort - involving hundreds of volunteers, many local businesses, truck drivers, emergency services and more. Only once the flooding had subsided did the community truly understand the scale of the response through media & public reporting.
When the immediate threat of the flooding had begin to pass, the work was still not done. Ben and the HNS team continued to assist with recovery, cleanups of flooded homes and properties, and removing damaged material from sheds and businesses that had been hit hard.
For Ben and the HNS team, the reason for getting involved was simple. Katherine is home. Those affected by the floods were neighbours, friends, customers, local businesses and families. Many who had lost much of their livelihoods.
Community and mateship have always been mantras of Hockey’s Northern Services - but the floods gave those words true meaning.
July 2026
Katherine Town Council later formally acknowledged Ben Hockey and his volunteer crew for their contribution during the emergency. Ben was subsequently awarded a Chief’s Minister Medal.
This recognition meant far more than an opportunity to bask in the glory of local applause, The flood response was dependent entirely on the volunteers, businesses, emergency services, HNS personell as well as complete strangers to pull together and make a difference for those in the community in need.
This community of mateship is something Hockey’s Northern Services intends to carry forward regardless of the growth and evolution of the business. This is our mission.
September 2026
Later in 2026 came another significant milestone for HNS. Ben Hockey was named the 2026 Busines Leader of the Year for the Katherine and Big Rivers Regions at the Regional Business Awards. While Ben was the individual receiving the award, the achievement was part of the much larger story of the success of Hockey’s Northern Services, and the impact it had made in the community in its few short years of operation.
There would be no business without the HNS crew. There would be no growth without a community giving a local business a chance to prove itself. And none of the achievements of HNS would have been possible without the family, friends and Katherine community that supported Ben four years ago when all he had was some basic equipment, an ABN and a willingness to have a go.
Today -
Just The Beginning.
2026 was a year of ups & downs. In the last half of 2026, Hockey’s Northern Services underwent the largest commercial expansion of its history. A major part of that growth was the move to scheduled telecommunications site maintenance and remote infrastructure services throughout the Northern Territory. Today, HNS crews mobilise from Katherine to undertake projects across Katherine & Tindal, Big Rivers, Greater Darwin, Top End, Tiwi Islands, East Arnhem, the Barkly Region, Central Australia, the Gulf and South East NT, Western NT and remote areas towards the Western Australian border.
HNS coordinates personnel, vehicles, truckes, trailers, machinery, equipment, chemicals, travel, accommodation, access requirements, safety documentation and completion reporting across very large geographical areas in the NT. The sheer reach and scope of the work of HNS is the clearest testament to how far the business has come. In 2022, Ben was cruising around Katherine trying to find his next job. In 2026, HNS crews are deployed to maintain telecommuncations and infrastructure assets across the territory.
Today, Hockey’s Northern Services is a Katherine-based, locally owned and operated multi-service contractor delivering property, grounds, cleaning and remote maintenance services throughout the Northern Territory.
Our work spans residential, commercial, community, government and infrastructure environments, with an increasingly strong capability in regional and remote service delivery and telecommunications site maintenance.
Our capabilities include:
Grounds & Vegetation Management
• Scheduled grounds maintenance, mowing, vegetation clearing, professional spraying, fire-risk reduction, tree works and green-waste management.
• Landscaping, Irrigation & Minor Works
• Landscaping, irrigation and reticulation, fencing, drainage, small earthworks and practical property improvements.
• Cleaning & Property Services
• Commercial and residential cleaning, pressure washing, gutter cleaning, bin cleaning, waste removal and associated property services.
• Remote Asset & Infrastructure Maintenance
• Scheduled and reactive maintenance of telecommunications and other remote infrastructure assets, including grounds, vegetation, fencing, cleaning, inspections, rectification works and documented completion reporting.
The scale of the operation has changed considerably.
The equipment is bigger.
The team is bigger.
The jobs are larger.
And the distances travelled are very different.
But the values behind HNS remain closely connected to where Ben came from and where the company calls home.
What Matters to Us
HNS is built around more than commercial growth.
Family — Family matters.
The decisions we make and the kind of workplace we want to build need to recognise that our people have lives and families outside of work.
Community
Katherine supported this business when it was starting out. We believe we have a responsibility to support Katherine in return.
Mateship
Look after the people beside you. Help when somebody needs a hand. Give people a fair go.
Local Opportunity
As HNS grows, we want to continue creating employment, training and opportunities for people in Katherine and the wider Northern Territory.
Pride in our Work
Whether the job is a local backyard or a remote telecommunications site hundreds of kilometres from Katherine, it deserves to be done properly. These values are consistent with the company’s established commitment to supporting locals, local employment, opportunity and positive community contribution.
Hockey’s Northern Services
