Report calls for national population body

The federal government should establish a national body to look at issues such as providing food, education and health services to a burgeoning population, a new report recommends.

The proposed Australian Population Council (APC) would bring together state and federal government policy on sustainable population growth, the Committee for Economic Development of Australia (CEDA) report says.

CEDA Chief Executive Professor Stephen Martin said Australia needed to start looking at population as a whole picture.

"People want to know, can they have sustainable food supplies? People want to know whether they can get into hospitals," he told AAP at the launch of the A Greater Australia: Population, policies and governance report in Sydney on Friday.

"And with a growing population ... we will have questions around skilling of that population and education requirements."

There was currently a general lack of co-ordination, he said. "Our view is to have a national population council so we can try to coordinate that in a much better fashion."

The report follows a two-year study into population factors including migration, ageing, infrastructure, environment and education.