Arboviruses (arthropod-borne viruses) are an important part of the Australian ecology. They can cause sporadic disease, but they also have the potential to cause large outbreaks. Symptoms include fever, rashes, arthritis, myalgia, haemorrhage and encephalitis. The drivers responsible for their emergence are complex, with the genetics of the viral pathogen being an important factor. Many arboviruses isolated from the 1950s onward remain uncharacterized. For these viruses, frequently the only information available for classification purposes has been serology, and for many little or no sequence information is available on their genomes. To address this critical information gap, which is important to assess their emergence potential, we have sequenced 10 different viruses in our collection from the Australian mainland and Macquarie Island (an Australian Antarctic territory). Historical inoculations in animals indicated neurovirulence for at least 5 of these viruses, supporting concerns of emergence potential. Viruses were randomly amplified and sequenced using semi-conductor sequencing on the Ion Torrent PGM™ platform. Many of the samples were sequenced on a single high density chip (318 chip). Phylogenetic analyses revealed that 9 of the viruses were from the Family Bunyaviridae, whilst one was from the Family Rhabdoviridae. Interestingly, searches on public sequence databases revealed that in three cases viruses had been re-isolated more recently and unknowingly renamed. All were found to be related to arboviruses associated with pathology in animals and humans. In particular, relationships to viruses causing haemorrhagic disease and encephalitis were established, indicating emergence potential. This work demonstrates the ability of the technology to obtain sequence rapidly and inexpensively without prior knowledge, facilitating design of assay reagents. It also elucidates the relationships among the arboviruses with emergence potential in the Australian biota.