Shortcut: Still Missing, Still Searching

Summary

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Australian True Crime – "Shortcut: Still Missing, Still Searching"

Host: Michelle Laurie
Guest: Nicole Morris (Founder, Australian Missing Persons Register, Author of Lost)
Date: August 9, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode of Australian True Crime, hosted by Michelle Laurie, features Nicole Morris, founder of the Australian Missing Persons Register. The discussion explores the ever-present and haunting reality of missing persons in Australia, drawing on Morris’s expertise and her latest book, Lost. The conversation exposes startling statistics, systemic challenges, and the emotional toll faced by missing persons and their families, highlighting Australia’s hidden crisis lurking in our own neighborhoods.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Alarming Scope of Missing Persons in Australia

• Updated Statistics:
  • Michelle Laurie opens with a familiar statistic: “I always say to people, yes, roughly 30,000 people a year in Australia reported missing. Is that incorrect now?” (01:35)
  • Nicole corrects: “Yeah. Oh, yeah. The new stats are out and it’s 49,000.” (01:42)
  • Of those, “the shocking figure is actually the long term missing person. So that’s anyone missing longer than 90 days is 2,800.” (01:48)

The Problem with the Term “Runaway”

• Nicole challenges the use of “runaway”:
  • “The reason I don’t like the term also is people accuse them of being naughty. And it trivializes the seriousness of a kid making a decision to maybe go and sleep in a park rather than where they’re supposed to be living. And you have to think, what is going on? That’s not naughty, that’s desperation.” (02:21)
  • Michelle sums it up: “It’s dismissive.” (02:45)

Homelessness and Youth Vulnerability

• Staggering Youth Homelessness:

  • Michelle: “Nearly a quarter of Australia’s homeless population are aged between 12 and 24 years. That’s a lot. Isn’t that awful of people who should be at home with their parents, frankly,” (03:06)
  • “Young people presenting alone... accounted for 14% of people seeking support from specialist homelessness services... 15% of people seeking support for homelessness are teenagers. Young people.” (03:25-03:44)
  • “Of the 122,000, roughly people experiencing homelessness in 2021, 14% of them were aged under 12.” (03:47)
  • Nicole: “It breaks my heart... Every child in Australia should be. They should have a bed, they should have a roof, and it’s not happening.” (03:56)

• Turned Away from Support:

  • Michelle: “In 2023, 8,450 children and young people seeking homelessness support had to be turned away.” (04:13)
  • Nicole: “There’s not enough beds... If they even present at the shelter, there’s a time limit on how long they’re allowed to be there... then they’re shuffled back out into the street and they’re doing whatever they have to do to survive.” (04:23)

• Link Between Homelessness and Going Missing:

  • Michelle: “...there’s a correlation between homelessness and missing people who go missing. Because if we don’t have an address, if we don’t know where you live, it’s hard to keep tabs on people.” (04:51)
  • Nicole: “A park is not an address. And if they’re... couch surfing, then, you know, how do we keep a track of them? How do we help them?” (05:04)

Cost of Living & Repeat Missing Youth

• Michelle asks about recent trends: “There’s a lot of conversation around Australia at the moment about the cost of living. Have you seen, do you think, anecdotally, there has been an increase in homelessness and in the home insecurity in Australia?” (05:20)
• Nicole observes: “And I’m quite often seeing the same kids pop up over and over again... you recognize their name and again, missing again. And you just think, what is going on in this poor child’s life to cause this?” (05:38)
• “All of these pressures contribute to immense head pressure, immense head confusion. And that, you know, is obviously gonna lead to bad choices.” (05:38)

The Other Side: Unidentified Remains

• Michelle references unidentified remains: “The other side, of course, is unidentified remains. We know that... about 500 sets of unidentified remains around Australia.” (06:19)
• Nicole updates: “750. 300 in Sydney alone.” (06:41)
• “So I’m making appeals for people that have already been found, right? Without a doubt. I’m making appeals this week for people who... have been found years ago. And we just don’t know because for whatever reason, they haven’t been identified.” (06:43)

The Crucial Role of DNA

• Michelle: “If you are a person who has a missing person in your family, it’s important that you go and give your DNA again, because as DNA technology changes, there are different pathways to making those connections, right?” (07:07)
• Nicole: “Absolutely. Absolutely. It’s crucial because... these people are probably waiting years to find out the most important piece of news they’ll ever hear in their lives because of what, a little $5 DNA test?” (07:21)

Persistent Mystery Despite Modern Technology

• Michelle questions the ease of finding people with modern surveillance: “...is it easier to find people, but I guess not. The stats would say no.” (07:43)

• Nicole notes: “There will ever be a time where I can sort of tick off every box on the register. It’s just not going to happen because... there’s so many different reasons why people are going missing. We live on a big island with cliffs and oceans and bushland and there’s always going to be somebody going missing...” (08:02)

• Michelle describes the difficulty of searches: “...the Australian outback really camouflages everything, every color, every... you think you would spot a bright orange T shirt, but when it’s out there, you don’t.” (08:29)

• Nicole concurs: “Exactly right. And people can... be concealed in the tiniest of places.” (08:39)

Ambiguous Loss and Lack of Support

• Michelle: “If they don’t think they’ve committed a crime or they don’t think a crime’s been committed against them, nobody’s helping you look.” (09:19)
• Nicole explains the impact on families: “Missing is not dead or alive. Missing is in the middle. And that’s the ambiguous part of the ambiguous loss. It’s not alive and it’s not dead and so it doesn’t fit government forms.” (10:19)

Recognition and Resources

• Michelle acknowledges Nicole’s vital work: “...you are part of that support system that’s sprung up around these people. So well done, you. And it’s the Missing Persons Register, isn’t it, that we can follow you on Facebook, keep up to date with you and buy your books?” (10:26)
• Nicole confirms: “Absolutely. Absolutely.” (10:43)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On updated statistics:
  • Nicole: “The new stats are out and it’s 49,000.” (01:42)
• On language and stigma:
  • Nicole: “It trivializes the seriousness of a kid making a decision to maybe go and sleep in a park rather than where they’re supposed to be living... that’s desperation.” (02:21)
• On unidentified remains:
  • Nicole: “750. 300 in Sydney alone... And it’s horrifying.” (06:41)
• On ambiguous loss:
  • Nicole: “Missing is not dead or alive. Missing is in the middle.” (10:19)
• On youth homelessness:
  • Michelle: “Nearly a quarter of Australia’s homeless population are aged between 12 and 24 years... Of the 122,000... 14% of them were aged under 12.” (03:06, 03:47)

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Important Timestamps

• Updated missing persons statistics – 01:35–01:48
• Problems with “runaway” terminology – 02:21–02:46
• Youth homelessness insights – 03:06–03:56
• Homelessness and missing link – 04:51–05:04
• Cost of living and repeat missing youth – 05:20–05:38
• Unidentified remains discussion – 06:19–06:43
• Importance of DNA contributions – 07:07–07:21
• Why finding people remains difficult – 07:43–08:39
• Ambiguous loss for families – 09:19–10:19
• Resources and contacts – 10:43–end

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Resources Mentioned

• More True Stories From Families of Australian Missing Persons by Nicole Morris
• Australian Missing Persons Register (find on Facebook)
• If you need support:
  • Lifeline: 13 11 14
  • 1800 Respect: 1800 737 732 / 1800respect.org.au
  • For Indigenous Australians: 13 Yarn (13 92 76) / 13yarn.org.au

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This episode presents a stark reminder of the scope and heartache surrounding Australia’s missing persons, the systemic gaps in response, and the enduring work of advocates like Nicole Morris. It is both a sobering and motivating call for awareness and action.

Transcript

[Podcast Producer/Announcer]

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[Michelle Laurie]

This is Australian True Crime with Michelle Laurie and we're joined by Nicole Morris, who's the founder of the Australian Missing Persons Register. She joins us to talk about her new book, Lost. This is Australian True Crime. We acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which this podcast is created. The Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung People of the Kulin Nation and a warning. This episode of the podcast contains graphic descriptions of violence. I use a stat. I don't know if it's still correct. It might be outdated. I always say to people, yes, roughly 30,000 people a year in Australia reported missing. Is that incorrect now?

[Nicole Morris]

Yeah. Oh, yeah. The new stats are out and it's 49,000.

[Michelle Laurie]

My God.

[Nicole Morris]

And the shocking figure is actually the long term missing person. So that's anyone missing longer than 90 days is 2,800.

[Michelle Laurie]

Also in the book, you do a really interesting chapter on. You say you call it runaways, but you make the point very early on that you don't like that term. Because we know in the past that sometimes police haven't perhaps jumped on an investigation early enough because they have said it's a teenager, they've run away, they'll come back. Even though families say, please believe me, I know this child, that is not what's happening.

[Nicole Morris]

The reason I don't like the term also is people accuse them of being naughty. And it trivializes the seriousness of a kid making a decision to maybe go and sleep in a park rather than where they're supposed to be living. And you have to think, what is going on? That's not naughty, that's desperation. So I think, you know, calling them a runaway is.

[Michelle Laurie]

It's dismissive.

[Nicole Morris]

Yeah, it is. It really is. Yeah.

[Michelle Laurie]

And you make the point in here too, that you Know that it doesn't mean that there's nothing wrong. If young people pop up again in two days, it's still problematic that we didn't know where they were for a couple of days. And you talk to a couple of young people who were listed as missing and they'll say things like, I didn't realise I was listed as missing, or this is what happened, the chain of events and I've lost my phone. And so, you know, all of the reasons that this can happen. Nearly a quarter of Australia's homeless population are aged between 12 and 24 years. That's a lot. Isn't that awful of people who should be at home with their parents, frankly,

[Nicole Morris]

should have a home.

[Michelle Laurie]

Yeah, yeah. Young people presenting alone that is unaccompanied by a parent or a guardian accounted for 14% of people seeking support from specialist homelessness services, that no one is keeping them safe. 15% of people seeking support for homelessness are teenagers. Young people.

[Nicole Morris]

Yeah. Yep. On their own. Yep.

[Michelle Laurie]

Of the 122,000, roughly people experiencing homelessness in 2021, 14% of them were aged under 12.

[Nicole Morris]

It breaks my heart, you know, our kids are home safe, where every child in Australia should be. They should have a bed, they should have a roof, and it's not happening.

[Michelle Laurie]

There are a lot of Australian children living in cars, living in, you know, all of these temporary situations.

[Nicole Morris]

Yeah.

[Michelle Laurie]

Oh, this is a terrible one. In 2023, 8,450 children and young people seeking homelessness support had to be turned away. Yeah.

[Nicole Morris]

Yep. There's not enough beds. And I think one of the stories in the book, the. The girl said that, you know, if they even present at the shelter, there's a time limit on how long they're allowed to be there for. And then they're shuffled back out into the street and they're doing whatever they have to do to survive. And how can we be this amazing, great wealthy country that we are and allow this to happen?

[Michelle Laurie]

Yeah. And obviously there's a correlation between homelessness and missing people who go missing. Because if we don't have an address, if we don't know where you live, it's hard to keep tabs on people. And sometimes people have been missing longer than we realise.

[Nicole Morris]

Absolutely, absolutely. And, you know, a park is not an address. And if they're choosing to run away and live in a park, if they're choosing to run away and couch surf, then, you know, how do we keep a track of them? How do we help them? How do we find them there's a

[Michelle Laurie]

lot of conversation, and especially young people who are vulnerable if they're homeless. So that leaves them open to all sorts of problems. There's a lot of conversation around Australia at the moment about the cost of living. Have you seen, do you think, anecdotally, there has been an increase in homelessness and in the home insecurity in Australia?

[Nicole Morris]

I think so, yeah. I think so. I think it's certainly contributed to mental health crises, which then leads to people going missing, to adults going missing. But, yeah, I think. And I'm quite often seeing the same kids pop up over and over again. The same, you know, they've been missing before and you recognise their name and again, missing again. And you just think, what is going on in this poor child's life to cause this? I think absolutely all of these pressures contribute to immense head pressure, immense head confusion. And that, you know, is obviously gonna lead to bad choices.

[Michelle Laurie]

The other side of missing people, you know, one side of it is families desperately seeking knowledge, understanding of where their person has gone. The other side, of course, is unidentified remains. We know that. I think, again, I might be out of touch with my stats, but I think there were about 500 sets of unidentified remains around Australia.

[Nicole Morris]

750.

[Michelle Laurie]

750. God, I'm way behind.

[Nicole Morris]

750. 300 in Sydney alone. I just went and looked that up again because I was like, is that actually true? That's just. And it's horrifying. So I'm making appeals for people that have already been found, right? Without a doubt. I'm making appeals this week for people who are. Have. Have been found years ago. And we just don't know because for whatever reason, they haven't been identified.

[Michelle Laurie]

If you are a person who has a missing person in your family, it's important that you go and give your DNA again, because as DNA technology changes, there are different pathways to making those connections, right?

[Nicole Morris]

Absolutely. Absolutely. It's crucial because, you know, how cruel would it be to have someone even wait an hour longer than they need to? And these people are probably waiting years to find out the most important piece of news they'll ever hear in their lives because of What, a little $5 DNA test? It can't be that expensive to get this done.

[Michelle Laurie]

I mean, I think I know the answer to this question because you keep updating the stats on me. But I was gonna say, you know, how are people still going missing? Basically, I was thinking, now we're all tracked by everything. We're all. We've got cameras everywhere, you know, is it easier to find people, but I guess not. The stats would say no.

[Nicole Morris]

I think people are always going to go missing. I think. I don't think that there will ever be a time where I can sort of tick off every box on the register. It's just not going to happen because we live in a world where, you know, there's so many different reasons why people are going missing. We live on a big island with cliffs and oceans and bushland and there's always going to be somebody going missing and, and I think that's part of it as well. It's as civilised and populated as Australia is. There's still a lot of vastness out

[Michelle Laurie]

there and it's camouflage. We've learned that the Australian outback really camouflages everything, every colour, every. You know, you think you would spot a bright orange T shirt, but when it's out there, you don't.

[Nicole Morris]

Yep, exactly right. And. And people can, can be concealed in the tiniest of places.

[Michelle Laurie]

We've learned a lot about ambiguous loss through your work and the work of Lauren o' Keefe and other people who have dedicated themselves to missing persons and the families looking for them. And it's one of those weird areas that I learned wasn't supported. You know, you think a loved one goes missing, that all sorts of agencies would swing into action to support you and to look, and then you realize, no, that is not the case. If they don't think they've committed a crime or they don't think a crime's been committed against them, nobody's helping you look.

[Nicole Morris]

Exactly. And it's almost the opposite. It's almost difficult. In the book, if you read Michael Graham's chapter His Wife, while he was still missing, she was just. All she wanted to do was take their little girl to New Zealand for Christmas and she couldn't. Because when you take a child out of the country, you need the. Both parents permission and one of those parents was not there. So just that little act and, and just imagine her sitting on the, on the floor of the, the passport office, sobbing because she said, I just need a passport. I just need to take my daughter to her family for Christmas. I can't get his signature because he's not here. She couldn't even put. Put a notice in the paper about a memorial service because they said, oh, no, we need a funeral notice. We need the notice from the funeral director. And she said there isn't one because. Because he's missing and missing doesn't fit any boxes. Missing is not dead or alive. Missing is in the middle. And that's the ambiguous part of the ambiguous loss. You've it's not alive and it's not dead and so it doesn't fit government forms.

[Michelle Laurie]

I mean, for life's work, even though you're working in sadness a lot, you are part of that support system that's sprung up around these people. So well done, you. And it's the Missing Persons Register, isn't it, that we can follow you on Facebook, keep up to date with you and buy your books?

[Nicole Morris]

Absolutely. Absolutely.

[Michelle Laurie]

The book is called More True Stories From Families of Australian Missing Persons by Nicole Morris. Thank you so much.

[Nicole Morris]

Thank you very much, Michelle.

[Michelle Laurie]

If you need support after listening to this podcast, you can call Lifeline on 131114 or contact 1-800-Respect on 1-800-737-732 or 1-800-Respect. Org AU. Indigenous Australians can contact 13 Yarn on 139276 or 13yarn.org AU.

[Podcast Producer/Announcer]

The producers of this podcast recognise the traditional owners of the land on which it's recorded.

[Nicole Morris]

They pay respect to the Aboriginal elders

[Podcast Producer/Announcer]

past, present and those emerging.