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NSW Jobs Minister Stuart Ayres has hit back at claims he intervened in sports grants in the lead-up to the 2019 state election insisting he just did his job.

NSW Jobs Minister Stuart Ayres insists he did not intervene in sports grants after recent reports claimed he targeted Liberal seats in the lead-up to the 2019 state election.

The state's Labor leader Jodi McKay referred the scheme to the auditor-general earlier in the year, arguing 90 per cent of grants were given to Liberal or target seats in before last year's state election.

Mr Ayres, who was sports minister at the time, says it's no coincidence the bulk of the grants landed in Liberal electorates and insists they were based on a "very clear" methodology.

"I didn't intervene in a program, I did my job. I was the minister for sport," he told reporters in Sydney on Friday.

The grants were set up in response to requests from sports communities, he added.

Mr Ayres, who now holds the jobs and tourism portfolios, says decisions had to be made to cull about $74 million worth of applications to meet the budget of about $33 million.

It follows reports the Liberal MP was directly involved in deciding which applications were shortlisted for funding in the 2018 grants round, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.

He reportedly chose five of the 15 successful projects at the final approvals stage and rejected two grants recommended by the Office of Sports' assessment panel.

NSW Labor had previously said that 12 of the 15 grants administered under last year's $33.4 million round of funding for the Greater Sydney Sport Facility Fund were for projects in Liberal-held seats.

Councils in western Sydney including Canterbury Bankstown, Blacktown, Liverpool and Campbelltown had their funding applications rejected.

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian on Thursday said it would be unusual if a minister had nothing to do with a grants program they were administering.

"It's just not feasible that there would be a grants program in your area of responsibility, which you didn't have at least some input into," she said.

"The issue is, was all the criteria satisfied for all the applications that came forward ... so long as everything's done within the guidelines."

The premier said this was unlike the sports rorts scandal that plagued the federal government and which led to the resignation of deputy Nationals leader Senator Bridget McKenzie, saying there was no conflict of interest for Mr Ayres.