The brother of missing 33-year-old Susan Kiely was among several witnesses at a NSW inquiry into missing persons investigations on Friday.
Ms Kiely disappeared from Bellingen, on the mid-north coast, in 1989.
An early investigation - since ruled "hopeless" at an inquest - gave way to nearly four decades of bureaucratic silence, Gary Kiely alleged.
Asked by Legalise Cannabis Party MP Jeremy Buckingham if the ordeal left him wanting a dedicated liaison between police and family, Mr Kiely said he did.
"It's been woeful. Our family's been the victim of (poor communications), I can only hope now police have got their act together or are getting it together to establish those very lines," he said.
"(Otherwise) we're just out there crying in the dark."
Loved ones of a three-year-old girl kidnapped and presumed dead nearly six decades ago made similar calls.
Cheryl Grimmer was abducted outside a Wollongong beach changing shed in the 1970s.
Her family called for an independent review of Cheryl's case, citing a lack of updates from police and a failed prosecution attempt, and improved police communications.
Brother Paul Grimmer said the lack of answers left the family broken.
"As I got older I felt inadequate to stop my parents from suffering," he wrote.
"If police had shown empathy in the beginning when Cheryl disappeared and updated my family, my parents may have been a little less broken."
He called for reformed police liaison with bereaved families, including creating a peak body to represent loved ones of the disappeared.
Police charged a man in the 2010s with relation to Cheryl's disappearance following a cold-case investigation into an alleged confession he made as a teen.
However, it was dropped after a key 1971 interview was ruled inadmissible under laws Cheryl's family say need clarification.
Reviewing the case, Michael Grimmer, Cheryl's cousin, said he made 54 submissions to the Office of The Director of Public Prosecutions.
They alleged errors were made in the case, including in assessing the interview, and cited a need for legislative clarification.
In return, the family received a short two-page letter with a few lines of text reinforcing the previous decision, Mr Grimmer alleged.
"We were very shocked at the response, not just the outcome, but the fact there was no engagement with the brief of evidence ... we felt that was absolutely shocking," he said.
Former NSW police assistant commissioner John Laycock, who worked as a criminal investigator for 22 of his 37 years in the force, also fronted the inquiry.
"Here we have a section of politicians who have become instant experts in homicide investigations ... delving into an area completely above their heads," Mr Laycock wrote.
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