I remember being slightly amused hearing Greek Australians describe their first encounters with a squat toilet. Usually, it was in an old train station, or a port, or even some tavern-before-time in a remote village. The poor second-or-third generation Aussies, making a pilgrimage to their grandparents’ village (with stops to the islands on the way), would always be shocked by this gaping hole on the (suspiciously) wet floor, waiting for them to do who-knows-what.

Most ended up too confused to even attempt squatting, opting instead to wait till they get back to civilisation (their hotel, that is). Although I made fun of them at the time, deep down what I felt was empathy. I can relate to the horror of facing this void, the first time I had to use the toilets at my school. I was not prepared. And I’m scarred for life. Because I grew up in a middle-class suburb of Athens, in the ’80s; we had electricity, running water, Coca-Cola and Kellogg’s cereal and watched the same TV shows as anybody in the Western world. Our then President, Kostantinos Karamanlis, had specifically ensured us that “we belong to the West”, ending centuries of confusion and speculation.

But, apparently, some of our public buildings had not got the message. It is not by accident that we call them ‘Turkish toilets’, by the way, for these porcelain holes in the ground are more than an option of hygienic infrastracture. They are symbols of the darkest period in Greek history, stern reminders of the reason the country is seen as backward and still struggles to keep up with the other developed nations. As Greece evolved and modernised, gone were the ‘Turkish toilets’, which were reduced to a running joke for tourists.

Yes, I’d never thought that I’d have to discuss the issue of squat toilets again, in a setting other than ‘narrate your most horrifying food-poisoning-while-on-holiday-scenario’ – and I most definitely had not anticipated coming across this issue in the context of government policy and taxation.

Enter Pauline Hanson. In a week when Australia was grappling with the revelations of rape and abuse in the asylum seeker detention centres, the One Nation leader made a video editorial, questioning the ATO’s decision to introduce ‘squat toilets’ in its new buildings in various places. For the ATO’s acting chief finance officer Justin Untersteiner, this was proof of the organisation staying “committed to maintaining an inclusive workplace that engages, informs and supports all our employees, whatever their background”, as he told the Herald Sun, explaining that more than 20 per cent of ATO employees come from a non-English speaking background. For Hanson and her supporters this is anathema, as they see this as proof that “they want their toilet style in all our public toilets – at our expense”, with the ultimate goal, of course, of turning ‘us’ (i.e. ‘White Australians’) into a minority, one that will soon be forced to use these ‘barbaric’, ‘feral’ toilets.

We should expect more of that noise, as One Nation is now the fourth party in the Senate, polluting the public discourse with ignorance, lies and irrational fears. Hanson’s argument was that, since ‘they’ are not able to understand how to use ‘our’ toilets, they are most definitely not able to do anything with our taxes and should not be allowed anywhere near our tax records.

A leap in logic? Maybe, but Islamophobia does that to you. It is not surprising, though. For a party obsessed with food, wrongfully accusing Halal certification for being a stepping stone to Islamic terrorism, it is natural that it would also be concerned with what goes on after said food is digested. So, much in the way it happened in eager-to-prove-it-is-western-Greece, squat toilets are now seen as a menace to our western values (especially in our freedom to read while in the loo).

Adding insult to their injury, their arch-enemy, the Australian Multicultural Foundation, not only welcomed the move, but in the Herald Sun piece, its executive director Hass Dellal, who is also an OAM recipient and SBS chairman, is quoted saying “the squat style of toileting was becoming more popular because of its health benefits”.

Wait, what?

Yes, apparently, he may be right. Last year, Germany − the most European of all places − was taken by storm when microbiologist Giulia Enders wrote a book, aptly named Charming Bowels, in which she debates the issue, among other matters.

According to her, squatting is more natural and puts less pressure on the bowels and rectum: “1.2 billion people around the world who squat have almost no incidence of diverticulosis and fewer problems with piles. We in the west, on the other hand, squeeze our gut tissue until it comes out of our bottoms.”

Some even go so far as to drop them in the ballot box.