This is Australia, not China. It is 1997, not 1957. While the rest of the world tries to deal with the problems which are arising as a result of pertussis vaccination, Australia has committed itself to not only expanding the vaccination program, but penalising any parents who would pause until the issue is clearer. There are many serious questions currently unresolved, not the least of which is the emergence of mutant strains of the pertussis bacterium, for which vaccination seems to be ineffective. This is far from the only issue, though.
Pertussis vaccination provides only temporary protection against the whooping cough.
After three to seven years, the vaccine induced protection is gone, and the person can again be infected with pertussis. In the USA, where pertussis immunisation is compulsory, one eighth of all adults with a cough persisting longer than two weeks were identified as suffering from whooping cough. In Australia, this would suggest that there are around 30,000 adult cases of whooping cough per year. There is less than a fifth that number of cases among children. The odds are over eighty percent that baby Nathaniel, as well as the babies who are said to have died from whooping cough, caught their infection from an adult, quite possibly from hospital staff 9 .