The whole PERTH economy is in the toilet. Highest unemployment rate in the country at 7%, tens of thousands of people under employed, almost a 5 year long real estate slide, new home construction has halved, retail is down, mining is down and there is no real signs of things improving too quickly. Long story short, if we hurt, then the working girls hurt. We are all slaves of the same evil master. There are bargains everywhere at the moment as long as the buying public has the surplus cash to spend.
Our lady friends are definitely not immune to the down turn, in fact, because they provide a non essential service that most of us would regard as a luxury item, their income could suffer as much as the rest of us, if not more, I know my regulars are feeling it.
Definitely a good time to bargain if that is how you do things & these girls come from a culture that almost demands it, so I doubt they will be too upset if some punters try. Personally I prefer to pay them a decent amount but maybe get a slightly better service, which I guess is a kind of bartering any way but at least they still make a good quid & I also benefit for a little bit extra of the good stuff.
Everybody wins then or at least gets to pay their bills.