Peter Dutton grew up not far from Pine Rivers, in the outer-northern suburbs of Brisbane, where Cheryl Springer has lived with her family since the early 1970s.

“It’s our hood,” Springer says. “His friends are our friends are everybody’s friends. I have known Peter for a long, long time. He’s lived here since he was a boy, he went to school with boys who are my boys’ age.

“There’s a lot of pride in the fact that Peter Dutton represents this electorate in Canberra and represents us well. But there was a bit of bewilderment, and perhaps a bit of shame, attached to the leadership spill.

“There are other residents like me who struggle with what happened.”

Play Video 8:06 Dickson: sleepy suburbia roused by the battle over Peter Dutton – video

Nine months on, Dutton’s leadership challenge still simmers in the background of every conversation with voters in Dickson, the seat the home affairs minister holds by a slim margin of 1.7%.

Dickson has become the test site of a great political experiment: an exhausting, years-long local campaign in a place considered among the most disengaged in the country, where most people would rather talk about the footy than about politics.

GetUp has knocked on more than 12,000 doors. Labor’s challenger, Ali France, has been on the ground campaigning for 15 months. And yet, with just days until the federal election, a huge swath of voters appear to be undecided, trying to weigh the policies and personalities, and the mountains upon mountains of campaign material.

Springer, who is the president of the Pine Rivers chamber of commerce and the director of a successful solar business, says the decision is among the hardest of any election she can recall.

“It’s very difficult for me, my husband, my sons, who traditionally would be Liberal voters, who would vote for Peter Dutton, to marry that up with what we know is going to happen with climate change under another Liberal government,” she says.

“We have got a lot to think about. And it has been discussed endlessly within the family of course, because we all know Peter Dutton.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Cheryl Springer says ‘there was a bit of bewilderment, and perhaps a bit of shame, attached to the leadership spill’. Photograph: David Kelly/The Guardian

The tipping point

Dickson is a patchwork electorate, carved from commuter-belt suburbs, industrial areas and rural villages in Brisbane’s north and north-west.

It includes Samford, which feels more like an upmarket country village, where locals sell plants and vegetables on a Saturday morning in the church grounds, and where the pace of daily life is much slower.

“Out here where they have larger acreages, climate and the environment could have an impact on the way they vote,” says Dina Fyfe, who is selling succulents at the markets the Saturday before election day.

The Greens, who preselected the respected human rights lawyer Benedict Coyne, have spent a lot of effort campaigning in Samford and its surrounds. Their targets in those areas are “teal” voters who in the past have favoured the Liberals, but who are are dissatisfied with the government’s record on climate change.

Across in suburbia, the electorate has a surprisingly high uptake of rooftop solar panels, which stand out in the postwar housing clusters where there are many lifelong residents, and in the newer estates built to satisfy Brisbane’s urban sprawl.

The campaign in Dickson is characterised by pitches to families, to the heart and the hip pocket. That sort of campaigning frustrates Gerry Lister, who runs the Youth Development Foundation, a community group that links disadvantaged young people with work opportunities and support services.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Gerry Lister, director of the Youth Development Foundation, says families ‘can’t see any sort of positive change’ coming from the election. Photograph: David Kelly/The Guardian

“Families that engage with our services are done [with the election campaign], they’re bored with it and they can’t see any sort of positive change at any level,” Lister says.

“We need lots of assistance down here. Our families can’t afford to go to school, can’t afford to eat, can’t afford to live. We’re feeding 64 people a week with our food parcels here.

“Politicians don’t want to talk about that. It’s too far-stretched and everyone is just ignoring the problem.”

Labor has targeted many of the newer housing developments, in a campaign that has focused on climate change, hospitals and hip pocket issues, rather than attempting to go toe-to-toe with Dutton on the issues that make him loved and loathed – immigration and border security.

Before the leadership challenge ... [Dutton's] profile and status would have perhaps got him across the line. Ali France, Labor candidate

France, a former journalist and disability advocate, who had her leg amputated after an accident eight years ago, says her campaign gained momentum after Dutton made a play for the prime ministership.

“Before the leadership challenge ... his profile and status would have perhaps got him across the line, but I think there was a different, definite shift once that happened,” she tells Guardian Australia.

“We saw it on the ground door knocking prior to the leadership challenge and after the leadership challenge, and I think that’s still at the forefront of people’s minds.

“I think that many people made up their minds then and haven’t changed their minds.”

Outside the Strathpine pre-poll eight days before election day, France introduces herself to voters as “Ali, the Labor candidate”. Some speak to her warmly. Others refuse a handshake.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Labor’s challenger, Ali France, has been on the ground campaigning for 15 months in Dickson. Photograph: David Kelly/The Guardian

Dutton has sought to cast her as an outsider, in an attack that missed the mark spectacularly in the first weeks of the campaign. In comments to the Australian, Dutton accused France of “using her disability as an excuse” for not moving to the electorate.

All smiles

Dutton famously promised to smile more when he made his ill-fated play for the leadership. The owner of the country’s most famous scowl, the deadpan salesman of the Coalition’s border protection policies, these days can’t seem to get the grin off his face. It’s everywhere: on billboards and posters, even on the front page of the local free newspaper, the News Corp-owned Pine Rivers Press.

As the race in Dickson has appeared to tighten, Dutton has sought to let his softer side shine through. He has largely shunned the media and the spotlight of the national campaign, except for a few softer family profiles in News Corp publications. He did not respond to Guardian Australia requests for an interview.

On Friday, Jeremy Johnstone was at his home in Bray Park when the Pine Rivers Press arrived plastered with Dutton’s full-page advertisement.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Jeremy Johnstone collected copies of the Pine Rivers Press to return to Peter Dutton. Photograph: David L Kelly/The Guardian

“As soon as I got it that night I started door-knocking on my street and I got to meet some of my neighbours for the first time. I asked them politely, I said I want to take these papers back to Peter Dutton,” Johnstone said.

Dutton has become a hate figure for many on the left, the sort who motivates people like Johnstone, who is not aligned to a political party or group, to stand at the roadside in peak-hour with a home-made sign.

But there is a tendency when speaking to his political foes to misunderstand their passion as part of a much broader local community sentiment; Dutton is the ultimate political survivor and he retains many supporters here.

While Guardian Australia is speaking to Johnstone, a woman rushes over from her car to remind us not to believe “Labor lies” about the home affairs minister. Many locals say they can’t relate to the portrayal of Dutton in the national media.

“When you read that sort of thing, it’s not the same person you know,” Sylvia from the Kallangur Country Women’s Association told the Guardian last year.

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Dickson was considered a bellwether when Dutton was first elected 18 years ago. At least three times he has defied the polls to hold on to narrow margins. In 2007, Dutton won the seat by just 217 votes.

Seasoned campaigners from both parties think 2019 could be just as tight.

No stone unturned

In the campaign’s frantic final days, there is a sense in Dickson that the outcome is still up for grabs, and that critical votes can still be won.

On Saturday afternoon, door-knockers from GetUp are readying for a final push. Based on data collected over the past year, volunteers are going back to homes where voters indicated they were undecided. No stone is being left unturned.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest GetUp volunteers are going back to homes where voters indicated they were undecided. Photograph: Russell Shakespeare/The Guardian

Dutton has been a useful fundraiser for his opponents. France flew to Melbourne and Sydney to boost her campaign coffers, while GetUp has long had the home affairs minister at the top of its “hard right hit-list”.

The group’s campaign director for Dickson, Ruby-Rose O’Halloran, says the direct contact between volunteers and voters has been a powerful campaigning tool.

“Between now and Saturday we’re going to be fighting for every last vote,” O’Halloran said. “This week is the most crucial that there’s been.”

Margy Parkes has been hitting the pavement for GetUp for three months.

“I’m a very unenthusiastic door-knocker. It’s not something I’d choose to spend my Saturday doing, if I wasn’t passionate about it,” Parkes says. “But every time I’ve done it, every time I’ve gone out, I’d say I’ve changed at least two people’s minds.

“It’s really quite amazing. Not everyone wants to talk to you, but you do have some conversations and it does make a difference. And the margin is so small.”