Hanson's Liberals remain the underdogs for Saturday's poll, and will ever be in the ACT, where voters favour the political left and the Greens poll their highest numbers. But few would call him out of contention.

Is this Hanson's doing or Andrew Barr's?

Largely, probably, the latter. But what Hanson has done is neutralise Canberra's antipathy to the conservative side of politics. That's partly because he is a centrist, not a social conservative on the usual counts – he doesn't support legislated euthanasia, but supports same-sex marriage, is pro-choice on abortion and voted for a republic.

While Labor characterises the branch as the most conservative in the country, there is nothing of the hardline conservatism of former leader Zed Seselja in Hanson – although Hanson lined up with the sitting Liberals to support Seselja in his bitterly fought challenge to moderate Gary Humphries for the Senate seat.

The moderate-conservative divide is still real, but Hanson, with the conservative's spiritual leader, Alistair Coe, as his deputy, has kept the party united.

Hanson makes hay of his 22 years in the army, including in the East Timor peacekeeping force in 2000, leading the army training team in Iraq in 2007, a stint in Berlin during the fall of the Berlin Wall, and a paratrooper in the late 1990s.

He says his army career taught him to "leave no-one behind" (a curiously Hollywood rallying cry, this) but also gave him "a moderate's view". He has seen enough to "reject zealots and extremists at both ends of the political spectrum" and to "believe in a secular society where men and women of all races and religion and those without religious beliefs are treated equally".

Political leadership, though, is different in that "you can't dictate or direct or demand" and, especially in a party with disparate views, you need to "make sure that everybody feels that they're an important part of the team".

Hanson might have kept his party united, or its divisions corralled, but if he wins on Saturday, his toughest battles might be ahead. His biggest political handicap is possibly his and his team's utter lack of experience in government. Experience on the battlefield is one thing, but realising an agenda is never as simple as asking for it to be done, and in Hanson's case he must deal with a public service not only imbued in the ways of Labor after 15 years but also peppered with former Labor staffers.

One of the peculiarities to date has been watching him roll out traditional Labor promises. Other than an ambiguous promise for "lower rates", and a promise to scrap the lease variation tax for town-centre developments, we are yet to see the Liberal tax policy. How will they replace the revenue if they freeze rates hikes already budgeted? Nor have we heard anything, outside the campaign launch where friends were among friends, of strong economic management or fiscal austerity.

Whether the focus on hospitals, schools and buses is a ploy to sweep Labor's ground from beneath it or a reflection of Hanson's priorities is difficult to judge. But while it's fair to say that a Liberal Party rolling out a Labor agenda can leave you uneasy and wondering what lies behind, you don't get the sense of massively organised strategy behind the approach. We've said before that a more focused Liberal hierarchy would, after 15 years, have worked out that the path to government requires high-profile supportive independents. If the Liberals don't win on Saturday, you might wonder whether they have the political nous ever to win.

Hanson is the father of two boys, one 17 from his first marriage, and the other aged 10, about which he is effusive: "Both my boys are beautiful boys and I love them to death. We're very loving. We are very huggy as a family." He says the past 12 years, since he met Fleur and the pair made a modest extension to a modest house in Holder, have been the happiest of his life. Which could also explain the almost goofy grin.

He turns 50 in February and intends to celebrate by going to his local club for lamb's fry and bacon with family and a few close friends. While it might be unfair to cast his plan for Canberra in the same down-to-earth terms, you wouldn't describe any proposals to date as flashy, nor haute cuisine.

When you look for what shaped him, you cast back to his childhood in England in the 1970s, the son of a British air force pilot. The family moved many times with his father's postings and aged just eight, Jeremy was sent to boarding school, which he hated but casts as "a positive experience overall". "It toughened me up, gave me a good education, taught me resilience."

At 12, he stayed while his parents had a year's posting to Australia. Four years later, the family emigrated, his father buying a caravan, and driving up the coast looking to fulfil his dream of owning a farm. They bought 20 hectares south of Gympie.

Hanson and his wife joined the Canberra Liberals together in 2004, new to the city and looking to meet people. As it happens, the first person he met in the party was Brendan Smyth, whom he counts as a friend and whose sudden defection in what has been seen as a blatant political appointment, Hanson still refuses to criticise or condemn.

That was a low point in what has otherwise been an easy time on the hustings for Hanson, where he says one punter told him he would vote Liberal for the first time and "hold my nose while I do it".

Hanson says he could never fit with Labor, a party about "collectivism and the lowest common denominator". "It's one size fits all, rather than having a diversity of experience. They have a philosophy that doesn't embrace individualism, that doesn't embrace choice."

But he'll take the vote, however reluctantly it might be cast.